


The Cost of Time

by GinaMarie



Series: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen [3]
Category: Kalvan Series - Various Authors
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-08-28 12:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 173,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8446237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinaMarie/pseuds/GinaMarie
Summary: Judy Bondi and her friends have made a little history. Now it's time to teach a little history and a few other subjects. For Noia, daughter of a count, it's about her heart's desire.This is the second book of the series.





	1. The Balance of Power

I

Noia of North Port loved walking through the fish market, down by the docks of her father’s county. Some people thought that the mixture of strong smells was unpleasant, but each component of the aromatic mixture reminded her of things she loved about North Port. Whether it was the resin and wood of the fishing boats, the smell of fish sitting overlong in the market or the tang of the salt air...they were all things she loved.

She was supposed to be shopping for fish for the palace, but she was really there to look over the fishing boats and talk to the skippers and the fishermen who went out in them. She talked with the fish sellers and the artisans who lined the outskirts of the fish market; she talked to everyone.

Noia smiled slightly, ignoring the drizzling mist that came down steadily. On better days than this, when she was feeling adventurous, she’d ask one of the captains if she could ride out with him. Now and again, one would say yes, and she would do what she could to help sail the fishing boat, lending a hand with whatever she was told.

Her father would be angry with her for about a half finger’s width, berating her for being so foolish, doing things women shouldn’t do. But then he’d pepper her with questions for the next palm width about what she’d seen and learned. Her father might be the Count of North Port, but in his youth he’d gone out on those boats just as she did now. And he’d loved those times as much as she did.

Becoming a count had spoiled that for him, but he never forgot his love of the sea.

There was no sailing today. It was one thing to go to sea on a warm sunny day when the sky was clear, but it was something else again to do it this close to winter. The storms didn’t bother people so much ashore, although you had to be careful because large ones could come up unexpectedly. If you were out at sea when a storm came up like that, then you were in a fight for your life. No, Noia was a warm-weather sailor, mostly.

Noia was sixteen summers and now seventeen winters old. She had three older brothers, who had teased her unmercifully from the time of her earliest memories. They took after their mother, slender and tall, as fair-haired as most Zarthani were.

Noia was short, with brown hair and brown eyes, just like her father. He wasn’t a heavy man, but he was solidly built with layers and layers of muscle. He was reputed to be the strongest man in the entire county, and certainly enough men had challenged him every year at Summer Fair to prove it to all but the most thickheaded sailor or farmer.

After she reached puberty, her brothers’ teasing had taken a crueler turn. She was built like a tree trunk, with short, solid legs, solid arms and more muscles than most girls of any age. Worse, while she had breasts, they were flat pancakes. Her nipples only significantly increased the size of her bosom when she was cold; it was frustrating under the best of circumstances. The continual taunts and jeers from her brothers only made it worse.

Her father could hear no wrong about Alcibydos, his eldest son, and Noia had learned early that to complain about her brother was a futile waste of time.

She shook her head, remembering that her brothers were up there on the hill, far away from the market. She grinned and turned back to the fishmonger, intent on salmon for the night’s dinner at the palace.

She finished buying dinner and spent some time talking to a fisherman who did the most intricate carvings she’d ever seen. Thymis was someone she could talk to for many palm widths and he always had something new and marvelous for her to look at.

They were talking about life as it had been when he was a boy, when a single note sounded from the palace’s bell tower. The sound made Noia turn her head to look up the hill, wondering if she’d been imagining things. The bell tolled again and for a moment she was wondering who had made the mistake. The third toll finally drove the message home.

Thymis stretched out his hand and took hers. His skin was like the roughest fish scales, but even at his age, his grip was like iron. “My lady...my heart goes out to you!”

The bell continued to toll, while Noia stood stock still, trying to understand. There was nothing to understand, not really. The bell would only toll as it was if the count was dead.

She’d seen her father last night at dinner. He was laughing and happy, talking about something one of his dogs had done during winter quarters. He was barely forty summers!

A half dozen people gathered a few feet from her, all too polite to speak. She jerked her head in gratitude, knowing why they were there.

“Lady Noia, please,” one of the fishmongers said to her. He was Clemus, the head of the Market. “We would walk with you up the hill.”

What had her father said once, when she’d lost her temper over something her brother had done? “There is nothing remarkable about being noble. I may be the strongest man in the county, but I’m slower than molasses running uphill. No man will ever ask me to sing for his wedding and their prospective brides tremble in fear at the thought.”

He’d grinned at her and she’d grinned in exchange. “Nobility, Noia, is about duty. Duty to our people, first and foremost. They don’t want to know your gut aches or you’re about to puke your lunch. You’re a noble! Things like that don’t matter! When in doubt about what you should do–just look and act noble!”

So she stiffened her back and bowed at the Market boss. “Thank you, Clemus. I do need to get back.”

She ended up at the head of a procession from the town that stopped in front of the palace gates. Her eldest brother was there, standing on the top of the steps, his head bowed.

Noia walked forward and went to one knee before him. “Brother?”

He looked over her head to the townspeople and spoke to them. “The count, my father, walks after breakfast in his gardens. A short time ago, one of his attendants reported that he stopped walking, said something unintelligible, and then collapsed. My father, my friends, is dead.”

Noia felt faint. Worse, she knew her brother. He sounded neither bereaved nor surprised. Worse, he hadn’t looked at her or spoken to her.

She stood straight and walked forward. He made her walk around him, but she did so without demur.

A moment later he turned and returned to the palace, the gates closing behind them.

Alcibydos reached out and took her by the shoulder, jerking Noia around to face him. “If you ever again go to haggle with fishmongers, I’ll have you whipped out of the county.”

Ten thousand things went through Noia’s brain. The one thing she could decide would be best was to stay her tongue.

“Sister, you are an ugly wart. I have talked to Count Mountain Wall. His eldest son was killed in the war; his youngest is only half as ugly as you, but for all of that, one day he will be Count Mountain Wall. A moon from now, we will announce the engagement.”

That finally stirred Noia to speak. “I’ve met the little toad. Never.”

Alcibydos drew his arm back and slammed his fist into her face, drawing blood from her lips and nose. “I do not listen to such as you, sister! You listen to me, girl! You listen good! From now on, I rule here! No more of your girlish simpering prattle, no more of those tricks you used on our father. You will do what I tell you to, or I will shut you away!”

“How did our father die?” Noia asked, ignoring him. For that, she got the back of his hand against her cheek.

“He died. That’s all you need to know. You will do your duty to your family or you will be shut away.”

He looked at her up and down. “I’ve changed my mind. Marrying you to a noble would be a waste of gold. You do what you are told or I’ll slit your throat and feed you to the dogs.”

There it was, Noia thought. It was like Alcibydos had drawn a picture for her. He was twenty-two summers. Quite obviously, he’d decided not to wait for the normal course of events to pass.

She stared at her brother, knowing her father was barely cold, feeling a rage like she’d never felt before. Rage or not, though, she’d spent a fair amount of time at her father’s knee when he held audiences and even more time when he would reminisce with others.

“As you command, brother, so shall it be,” she told him, holding her voice level and mild by main strength of will.

“Remember one thing well, sister mine. You are mine, now. You will do as you are told, or on the morrow, your broken body will be found at the foot of the cliff, where my pampered little sister threw herself off, in sorrow.”

He gestured at her. “Go clean yourself up. Don’t bleed on my flagstones.”

She bowed low once again, turned and walked with her back rigid, to her rooms.

It took a palm width, but she finally managed to throw the last of the spies and sycophants out of her rooms. She barred the door and stood in front of her mirror, breathing hard.

She had twice told her father that Alcibydos was as dumb as a stump, but her father had never accepted that, not wanting to see any flaws in his heir. Well, that blindness had killed her father. She felt regret, knowing her father was a better man than her brother. A better man than all of her brothers combined.

She contemplated her other two brothers, and then sniffed in derision. An odd, odd thing. Their only hope of personal survival would have been quick marriages to politically powerful women who could protect them. The death of her father and her quick engagement would tell all the nobles of Zarthan what had really happened. There would be few, if any, candidates for her brothers.

Her brother hammered on her door. “Open this at once!”

“What? I wish to grieve for my departed father! Can I not do so in peace for a finger width? What do you think I’m going to do–throw myself off the tower?”

Her rooms were in the highest tower of palace. There were three hundred and fifty steps in the stone staircase that led to her room, sixty-five feet above the flagstones of the main courtyard.

She smiled once again in derision. Her brother had seen those stairs and had caviled, unwilling to make the trip many times a day, even though it meant his despised sister had a loftier room than his.

It was a hard thing, she was thinking. Leaving North Port wouldn’t be easy. Leaving behind everything she knew wouldn’t be easy. Escaping her brother would be easy enough. Not saying goodbye to her father...that was going to be the hardest of all.

She said a prayer for her father, for she was more sure about one thing than any other: no priest of Dralm or Galzar would see him before he was interred.

With a quick, abrupt motion, Noia turned and went to her dresser. A moment later she had scissors in her hand, and she went once again before the mirror. She took her time, doing a credible job of turning her long brown locks to something a boy would wear.

She gathered up the hair she’d cut into a bundle and dumped it into the garderobe. She went to her closet and took out a long, narrow winding sheet. With a sigh, she wrapped it around her chest, reducing her minuscule breasts to nonexistence.

She donned a man’s tunic, a man’s trousers and boots. Once again she presented herself at the mirror. Noia was gone but not dead; long live Noius, the sailor from North Port!

She turned to her door and saluted it. Good luck, brother! I know you, I know you very well. You personally will inspect my quarters, trusting no one else to do it. But inspect the garderobe? She laughed at the very thought.

The answer, brother, has been before you since I was little. I use the facilities in the lower castle, not up here.

She grabbed the rope that she had used to leave the tower more times than her brother could ever imagine, and slid down elegantly to the main landing. This time, instead of tying the rope off, she pulled the rope down, and then let it fall further into the palace’s true cesspit.

The garderobe wasn’t the sweetest way down from the tower, but it was the safest.

She went up two flights of stairs and into the stables. Half a dozen of the stable lads were at one end, talking loudly. The new count had ordered free beer and wine for all those in the county, all they could drink. The stable hands were intent on putting as large a dent into her brother’s pocketbook as they could.

She had no trouble walking out of the stables unnoticed, then down the main road into town. The guards were as drunk as the stable hands. She shook her head in sadness. Brother, you will reap what you sow! You let your men drink themselves insensible. How will that teach them their duty?

Undoubtedly her brother would clamp down on discipline in a few moon quarters, if not sooner. A great many of these men will leave your service, then. Of course, that was probably what he wanted, wasn’t it?

Intrigue wasn’t something people from North Port normally engaged in, but there were enough examples that they could take lessons from the mistakes of others.

It would have been simple, brother! Kill your father and then grieve loudly and publicly. Make no changes, not for several moons. Then make the changes gradually over a year. No one then, brother, would suspect you had our father murdered. But this way, brother, they will all know. And the true people of the realm will never, ever trust you.

Noia/Noius walked into town and found a spot out of the way of most of the traffic, put her foot behind her, as the sailors did, and leaned her head forward, covering her eyes with her sailor’s cap.

She could go overland, south, and tell the King of Zarthan what she suspected. Except she had no proof, and if he took her brother’s word, she would find herself back here in no time. She would probably be safe...until she was wed to the slug of a son of Count Mountain Wall.

She could go to the harbor and hire onto one of the ships that would be heading south. That would be safe enough; no one was likely to recognize her. The question then became, where did she want to go? Again, the King of Zarthan wasn’t someone she trusted. That left east and the High King...

She smiled into the gathering dusk. Everyone knew of Noia’s fondness for the sea. The docks would be the first place her brother would look for her.

She would go on foot, east. Sixty miles to the east was the Caravan Meet. She could hire on there as a guard. She wasn’t great with a sword, but her father had let her fire muskets and pistols. She was, with fireseed weapons, better than average.

There was a soft sound, the faintest breeze. She lifted her head and saw Thymis standing next to her. “My lady,” he said in the faintest of whispers.

She laughed, bitter and harsh. “If my disguise is that easy to penetrate, tomorrow I will be nothing at all.”

“You came from the palace, my lady. I was looking for someone your size with your hair color, your eye color. So what if you wear trousers? I looked for you, my lady, not the rest.”

“My brother had my father killed...if he didn’t do it himself. I doubt that, because my brother is pretty much a coward.”

The old sailor bobbed his head. His eyes never stopped looking around them, never pausing, not even for a moment.

“When your brother refused to let a priest tend to his body, my Lady, all knew the truth of how your father died.”

“My brother has a marriage already planned for me.”

“My lady has bruised lips. That too, speaks to his plans.”

“It is nothing. It was nothing compared to what else my brother has done to hurt me.”

“My lady, do you have a knife?”

“Of course. What fisherman leaves home without a knife?”

“My lady, please, may I see it?”

Noia wasn’t sure what the old man wanted, but she drew her knife, keeping the point towards him. He grinned, then reached out and took her hand in his. Both of his hands gripped her hand with the knife. His grip was like a vise, she realized an instant later. She was dead.

Instead, he led the knife to his own throat. “My lady, what I have to say will make you angry. Please, I am yours; my life is yours. I beg you to listen to what I have to say, but I will understand if you do not.”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Thymis. Besides, you’re stronger than I am.”

“True, my lady, but for some things, the will lags the muscles.

“My lady, I am the High King’s chief intelligencer in North Port.”

Noia almost dropped the knife, so surprised she was. “What?” she said, incredulous.

“My lady, I believe, as the High King does, in the freedom of men–and women. I don’t hold with slavery and serfdom.”

“We have never had those here,” Noia reminded him. “They’d run in a heartbeat, no matter what their fate might be–it would be safer than being a slave or serf here.”

“True, my lady. But until two years ago, that wasn’t how things were in most places of the realm.”

Since that was true, all she could do was nod.

“My lady has decided to go east, is that not right?”

“It seems to be the best choice,” she admitted, still trying to digest that this man was supposed to be her blood enemy.

“My lady can drop the knife from my throat or kill me.”

She giggled, unable to avoid it, as she sheathed her knife. “Sorry, Thymis.”

“I understand, my lady. Do you understand that this is how I live, every day?”

She contemplated that. It was true; certainly the danger was there, every day.

Thymis pressed a coin into her hand as soon as it was empty. It was obviously heavy, obviously gold.

“Trust me, my lady, or not. I swear to you that I am loyal to you, and to King Freidal.”

“And yet, you’re the High King’s man?”

“Yes, my lady. If you think about it, so, in a way, is the queen.”

Well, there was that. There had been a lot of grumbling when the king had married a foreigner, someone without a heritage of nobility. Of course, now, coming up two years on, the king’s wife already had run up a score of nobles who’d thought to plot against her. They died and she still lived.

“What is the coin?”

“It’s more a key, my lady. Take it to a man named Solon, who lives in Harphax City. Harphax City, my lady, is the place where the High King is forming his navy.”

“What is a navy?”

“His warships, my lady.”

Noia shrugged. “Warships make no sense. I saw my father put a cannon aboard a stout ship. In spite of due care, the cannon sank the ship when it was fired, not its target. And three of the five crewmen died in the water.”

“My lady, I tell you a great secret: the High King has ships with forty cannons that do not sink when the cannons are fired. And I mean cannons, not mortars. Some of his ships also mount mortars as large around as the largest cannon in the county.”

“Why don’t his ships sink?” Noia asked.

The old man laughed. “I don’t know. He is, after all, the High King. What you or I would fail at, he makes easy work of.

“My lady, see Solon in Harphax City. He will see that you are enlisted in the High King’s navy.”

“As I am or as I appear?”

“That will be for you to decide. Show the coin to my brother Solon. Listen to his advice.”

“And this coin is a safe conduct?”

He bobbed his head. “You are very smart, my lady. The High King has special signs that his people look for. This coin is one such. As I said, it is more like a key.”

She lofted the coin in her hand. It wasn’t possible to look at it, as dark as it was. “And this is a safe conduct? Really?”

“Lady, the common Gold Kalvan has the High King’s profile on one side, and the Halberd of Hostigos on the other. The coin you hold has the halberd on both sides.”

“Thymis, from here on, address me as ‘Noius’ the sailor.” She deepened her voice and roughened it.

“Of course, my lady,” he laughed and spoke again, “Of course, young sir.”

A palm width later she was with a caravan that had already formed up, ready to depart eastwards from North Port at daybreak.

A little before sun-up Noius faced a hatchet-faced man, the caravan master.

“Thymis says you are a sailor, who has run afoul of local politics.”

“Yes, Caravan Master.”

“And the charge against you?”

She blinked. Then she sighed. “Treason.”

The man laughed. “Treason in a little tiny county, up here in the rain country? They have no idea what treason is, here! Will you do as commanded, young man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you work honestly as one of my caravan guards?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you understand that as Caravan Master, I’ll have you roasting over a slow Northern Ruthani fire if you’re lying to me?”

“I’m not lying, sir.”

“Good! Don’t!”

It was not lost on Noia that by pretending to be a man she was lying to him from the outset. Well, she’d offset it a bit, she believed, because she hadn’t heard a charge against her, but she knew her brother.

After two days on the trail a party of four soldiers caught up with the caravan and questioned the Caravan Master. Noia had the misfortune to be close to the Caravan Master when they came up.

They told the Caravan Master that they were searching for the runaway sister of Count North Port, a girl of eighteen, with shoulder length light brown hair, who stood so high. So high, being even with the troop sergeant’s chest.

It was interesting, Noia thought. She’d aged, shrunk a head, her hair color had lightened and she recognized none of the soldiers.

The Caravan Master had listened to the description without a word. He nodded politely. “There is no woman with this caravan not known to me personally. There are none that young, or that height or that hair color.”

“We’ll take a look around, anyway.”

The Caravan Master shrugged, spreading his arms away from his body. That was the sign she’d been told meant to draw her weapon. She’d been given an old sword that had been long in its sheath. Since then, she’d cleaned and polished it thoroughly, knowing full well she’d stop being a caravan guard the instant she showed she didn’t take care of her weapon.

Now, she drew her blade along with the other guards.

“I am sorry, soldier, but that isn’t possible. I know the count’s guards; I’ve been coming this way for years. You aren’t one of them. You are, I believe, mercenaries I saw gathered at one of the inns near the palace.” He pointed at the road back to the west. “I don’t want trouble, but you will not search this caravan.”

“This will not sit well with Count North Port.”

“It will sit even less well with Count Echanistra, whose lands we are now on. Take your leave, Sergeant.”

“As I said, I’ll tell this to the count.”

“Only if you wish to anger Count Echanistra. Now please, take your leave on your own, or we’ll put you on your horses ourselves. You might be wearing considerably less than you are now and facing the wrong way if that were to happen.”

The soldiers left with bad grace, and the caravan pace sped up considerably and by nightfall they were in Echanistra. There was the usual bustle of making camp, and Noia had learned her duties in that, and joined in the work. She was sitting at a fire with some of the other guards when the Caravan Master came up and gestured that he wanted to see her.

When they were a little ways from the fire he was blunt. “You lied to me,” he told her.

“I rather assumed you knew that wasn’t my true name,” she told him, crossing her fingers.

“You said the charge was treason, not running away.”

“Do you know Count Echanistra?”

“A little.”

“I know him much better than that. If you would care to walk with me to his palace, we can talk to him and you can decide if I told the truth or not.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “If I listen to what you tell him, I imagine I will no longer be welcome in North Port.”

“One thing the new Count of North Port frequently said was that his father was stupid for not charging road tolls through his lands.”

“That would be a violation of the Unification Acts of the King,” the Caravan Master said.

“You’d think so. Or perhaps it would be as the new count told everyone in North Port that it was time to rethink the Unification Acts in light of the freeing of slaves and serfs and the coming war with the Mexicotál. The King’s taxes, the new count has said, would have to go higher still. Why should those of us in the north have to pay for a war in the south?”

“Aside from the God-King having a lot of very tall pyramids where his priests cut out the hearts of most of the people of the lands he conquers?” the Caravan Master mused. He laughed bitterly. “If the true charge isn’t treason now, it will be, won’t it?”

She just stared at him. He nodded then. “Wait a moment.” He went and fetched a few guards and they set off for Count Echanistra’s palace.

The streets of the city were crowded, misting rain or not. There was a hint of fog in the air as well. Echanistra was only one of several of the cities of Zarthan noted for its fogs, but none of them could match it for rain.

Noia had been afraid that there would be a problem getting to see the count, but she was wrong. The caravan guards were told to politely wait, while she and the Caravan Master were taken to a small presence chamber.

Count Echanistra was nearly sixty, a lean whip of man, now graying. But the graying hadn’t affected the brain underneath, and his eyes were alive and alert.

“Lady Noia, I am pleased to see you,” the count said without hesitation the instant he laid eyes on her. “I grieve at the circumstances that have brought you to me.”

“Great Uncle, I have some news for your ears.”

He waved her to silence. “That your brother is, even now, hiring as many mercenaries as he can buy? That he has suspiciously large amounts of money to do so? That he poisoned your father at breakfast? Using the same poison, I might add, that the priests of Styphon used to kill the King? That, even now, he plots high treason against Zarthan?”

She bowed her head. “Yes, Great Uncle.”

“I told my nephew that he should drown the little rat,” the count said roughly. “I am glad you survived, Noia.” He looked her up and down. “You look like a boy, girl.”

“It was something I had to do.”

“No doubt. Your oldest brother is a fool, your two younger brothers are simpering idiots.”

The count turned to the Caravan Master. “And right now you are here, as all of your kind, expecting payment for helping my niece?”

“No, your grace!” the man told him. “The lady offered me information as payment, and that will be enough. By the morrow, all caravans will be using the Old East Road.”

“It is possible that the dirty little rat will try raiding caravans.”

“Count, yesterday afternoon, well inside your lands, mercenary soldiers of North Port stopped us and demanded to search the caravan.”

“And?”

The Caravan Master grinned. “There were only four of them; men I did not recognize. We sent them on their way...back south and west.”

“For three hundred years we’ve had peace here in the north of Zarthan. Our only enemies were occasional raids from the Northern Ruthani. We treated such raids harshly, and they were rare.

“A half dozen years ago, the raids started up again. They were carried out by well-armed men, trained in fireseed weapons, using military tactics. At first, we thought it was the High King stirring up trouble, but my spies tell me that they are also raiding the High King’s lands as well.

“When we destroyed Styphon two years ago, we found sufficient evidence that they were the ones arming and paying the Northern Ruthani to raid against us.

“Except, there was barely a pause in their attacks. And now North Port...”

He bowed to the Caravan Master. “My head steward will have something for you, Caravan Master. As well as my thanks.”

“I sought no reward, sir.”

The count chuckled, “But you will, no doubt, accept a gift?”

The Caravan Master smiled. “It would be rude to decline a gift, Count.”

The count held out his hand to the Caravan Master and the two men shook hands. The Caravan Master left with his information, an offer of friendship and whatever the count had in mind for a “gift.”

“Now, niece, there is the little matter of what to do with you.”

Noia held her tongue, keeping her head bowed.

“You know what you have to do eventually, don’t you, dear girl?”

“My other brothers support Alcibydos. Yes, I know what has to happen. I take no pleasure in it; it was something I've never sought.”

“It is necessary, though. King Freidal has spread word to his most trusted counts about the danger from plots and plotters–not that most of us needed the warning. We face trouble from the Northern Ruthani; we face a terrible peril from the south.

“Too many of us were displeased at the results of the war with the High King, and even less pleased with freeing the slaves and serfs. We here in the north, though, it hurt us less than it did the large towns in the south and the Central Valley of Zarthan.

“I will admit to any who ask, and aye, a few times without being asked, that what has happened since is a special miracle. There is plenty of work to be done and plenty of willing hands to do it. It costs no more to employ a freedman or serf, than it did to maintain them. Such men work harder and better. We here in the north are making a good deal more money than we ever did before, and even the large baronies south of us are doing better than before.

“Xitki Quillan supported the changes, and we all thought he’d lost his mind. But it takes a man without any coppers to rub together not to realize the benefits of the changes.

“But there are these cowardly worms, the crawling maggots nipping at our heels, ready to throw it all away on plots and wars. Insanity! Simple insanity!

“Thus, one day, you will be raised up to rule in North Port.”

Noia nodded. “I understand, Great Uncle.”

“The problem right now is that while your brother works against us, it hasn’t quite risen to the point where the king can bring an army north and squash him. Your brother will quickly realize that his ambitions can best be served by being more discreet and he will give no overt reason to be squashed like the cockroach he is. Not until the plotters reach the point in their plans where they will strike openly.

“Between now and then, we have to do something with you. He will know that if you die, it will mean that the king will have to supplant your family. The king won’t want to do that, because it makes his other counts nervous. So, you will be worth significantly more to your brother dead than alive. I and the other counts have taken precautions against him, but it will be much more difficult to do in your case.”

“Not only do I look like a boy now, I look more like a boy than a woman at the best of times. I am not pretty to look at either.”

“Noia what you say isn’t untrue. But there is more to you than your looks. You’re clever, levelheaded and lucky, a bit.

“I have a mission that you can undertake. It’ll take a year, perhaps two. When you return from the mission, you will be of an age where you can lay claim to your father’s county, complaining that your brother set him aside by poison. That is sufficient cause in our law for you to raise an army and go take back your father’s patrimony. You would find that your claim would be welcomed by the king and the other counts of the Realm. No true man contemplates that sort of treason and patricide with anything but distaste. It would suit the Great Council of Counts quite well if Alcibydos was held up as an example of what happens when you try to take by main force what isn’t yours.”

Or, Noia realized, what he was saying was that if she was patient, the nobles, and even the king himself, would aid her in overthrowing her brother.

“And the mission?” she asked, curious.

“The High King is building new kinds of ships. Ships that can, for instance, sail against the wind.”

Noia frowned. “That isn’t possible, not unless you believe he’s truly a sorcerer.”

“I saw the report from King Freidal’s spy. The queen drew me a diagram on a piece of paper. Moreover, she says that in a few years the High King will be putting the same sorts of engines in ships that now pull the steam wagons, and ships will no longer be dependent on the wind at all.”

“That would be...”

“Of huge importance to us, Lady Noia. Huge! I would like you to go east and learn everything that you can about these new ships.”

“I had trouble passing as a man for a moon quarter,” she told him. “I don’t think I’d make a very good spy.”

He chuckled. “Dearest niece, the High King allows King Freidal to send military representatives to serve with his army. You will have a letter from the king, introducing you as his representative with the High King’s sea forces.

“The High King, I might add, allows women to enlist in his army. I imagine they would allow women in their ships as well.”

Noia contemplated treason and treason. She lifted her eyes up and met Count Echanistra’s. “Sire, I know something about this already...about what you want me to go and learn.”

He frowned. “How could that be, Lady Noia?”

“I have my own spies, Great Uncle,” she told him.

He grinned and held out his hand, his thumb pointing upwards. The gesture, her father had told her, had started with the Duke of Mexico, a man whose history remarkably paralleled the High King’s. It signified unqualified success.

She looked him in the eye as she spoke. “The High King calls his sea forces a ‘navy.’ He has ships already that carry as many as forty cannon, plus mortars large enough to send a priest of Styphon to his god with room left over. They are building these ships at a place called Harphax City.”

Count Echanistra shook his head in wonder. “And you think you wouldn’t make a very good intelligencer! My lady, the work of spying out such things is very dangerous indeed. But merely learning such knowledge is only half the job, because you have to get the information back to those who need it. Typically, those who go back and forth with the knowledge work with many spies. Spy catchers love to catch spies, but more so, they want to catch their masters.

“Because you see, the masters can lead them to many intelligencers. To be an intelligencer is dangerous. To be a master of intelligencers is very dangerous. I will not ask you more; in fact you told me quite a bit about you at the same time.

“Shortly, I’ll see that you get something to eat, and then, I’m afraid you’ll be traveling again. My first thought was to send you directly east, but that is simply too dangerous these days, no matter how many soldiers I send along with you as an escort. South...well, a squadron of my guard would be like waving a flag for Alcibydos telling him where you’ve been and where you are going and why. That wouldn’t be good.

“So, you will stay a boy for a while.” He stepped towards her and wrapped his arms around Noia and hugged her. “Lady Noia, my heart grieves that we meet like this.

“Now, please, follow my servant. He will take you to a room where you can refresh yourself for a few finger widths. He will bring you a change of clothes. Then you and I will have a late dinner, and then we will go for a walk. It’ll be foggy tonight, but there are too many eyes about, to move openly in the clear light of day.”

He rang a bell and a steward escorted her a short distance to a room with a pan of water to wash her face. Noia wished there was a way to get a bath, but if she was going to be traveling there wouldn’t be much point.

A finger width later the steward was back with a sailor’s pants and shirt, plus a leather tunic and pants, like guardsmen wore under their armor. “My lady, put both sets on, if you would, the leathers on the outside,” the man said, bowing to her.

She dressed quickly, and then checked herself out in a small mirror. She hoped she looked soldierly enough to fool someone late at night.

Count Echanistra kept the conversation over the simple meal away from events, talking instead about the size of the city’s harbor, its layout, and what it would mean to have ships that could sail into the wind.

When they finished, he stood and she joined him.

“What is going to happen, now, is that you will take up that sword you brought with you when you arrived. You will also be given a rifle, two pistols and a fireseed pouch. My guard patrols the city in times like these wearing just the leather jerkin, not bothering with any armor.

“In a moment, one of my guard sergeants will join us. He is a particularly loyal man, do you understand?”

She nodded that she understood. “Follow him and do as he says. You will be in a group of men going to relieve the watch. The sergeant will be at the head of the group. He and the man behind you will be the only ones who know where you are going, and other than that, they will never know anything else about the person that marched out of the palace tonight. You’ll be the second to last in the troop.

“They will stop at palace guard posts and the man on duty will take the place of the man who is replacing him, starting from the front of the column. Thus, you will have plenty of time to watch the routine, because you will be left second to last.

“You will be standing guard at the head of a dock, with one ship moored alongside. As soon as you can no longer see the others, simply undo the leathers and put them on the ground and then board the ship.”

“And then?”

“Within a few finger widths the ship will sail on slack water. You will find it–educational–to sail in the dark of a foggy night from this harbor. They are smugglers and used to that sort of thing. The captain of the ship knows only that you are bound for Baytown. Get off there and go to Freidal’s palace. Tell the guards you have a message for him from me. Once you see the king, start telling the truth.”

“Yes, your grace.”

He smiled. “One day, Noia, you and I will be peers. I prefer ‘Great Uncle’ to anything else.” He hugged her tightly again, a gesture he’d never used with her before this day.

“Of course, sir.” For a brief moment she hugged him back, glad of the comfort.

II

Freidal, King of Zarthan, sat down at the council table, next to his wife. The room was empty, the council meeting not due for a palm width yet. He had recently adopted the new fashion, started by the Duke of Mexico, of going without facial hair and he rubbed his bare cheeks, amazed what a man would do to please his woman.

His wife, Queen Elspeth, was playing with something long and thin, spinning it on the polished tabletop, making a metallic sound that he’d never heard before. She wasn’t as tall as he was, but was, if anything, blonder and very nearly as heavy as he was. She wasn’t fat, though. Maybe at one time, not so many years ago, his wife hadn’t been strong. Wars, battles, and deaths do tend to render people into their finest–or worst–components.

She seemed oblivious to him, and after a few heartbeats he asked, “Elspeth?”

“Sorry, Freidal.” She didn’t look or sound sorry. She did stand the object up on a flat round base.

“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing at it. It appeared to be made of copper or brass, he wasn’t sure which.

She smiled slightly at him. “Patience, husband. Knowing your penchant for arriving early and copping a feel from your wife just before all the rich and powerful nobles of the realm arrive, I took the liberty of inviting some others.”

He chuckled. “Obviously, someone forgot to tell you that I’m king and you’re queen. You stand politely next to me, let me feel you up when and where I please and generally let me have my way with you.”

His tone was light and she was laughing. “You are such a dreamer, you!” she told him.

Xitki Quillan entered, walked across the room and sat down next to Elspeth. He was a lean man in his fifties, not terribly tall, with snow-white hair. He moved as a man twenty years younger. He was the Count of the Central Valley of Zarthan, and the second most powerful man in the realm, after her husband.

Elspeth turned to him. “I’ve been dying to ask, Count. All of the Zarthani and all of their cousins in the Great Kingdoms have just one name. You have two.”

He smiled at her. “My father was a man who had made three Kings, Lady Elspeth. Freidal’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather all owed their thrones to him. So, when rather later in life that most men would, he decided to take a Mexicotál woman to wife, and I mean, actually marry her in a formal ceremony before Yritta All-Mother, and they couldn’t refuse him. My father gave me two names at my birth. He told me when I was six that the two names were halves of my heritage.” Count Quillan smiled benignly. “Two days later he was sitting at dinner, sipping wine when he started choking. A few heartbeats later, he was dead. I’ve never felt the least desire to change my name.”

Elspeth bowed low.

Two more people, both young, came in and sat at the council table. Alros, Freidal’s younger sister, was eighteen. She’d been a tomboy growing up, pleased that she’d never have to rule. Fate had dealt her a different hand though, and she’d ruled briefly as her brother’s regent when he lay critically wounded during the war.

During that period, her father was poisoned by the priests of Styphon and she’d ruled with an iron fist. With her was her husband, Denethon. He’d been sent to accompany the Mexicotál God-King’s army in the east as it marched on the High King’s largest city, Xiphlon. His advice had been ignored by the God-King’s captain-general who commanded the van of the army, a quarter of a million men. As a result, Denethon had a ringside seat when the captain-general led his army into a trap. Only two men in five survived that day, and after that Denethon had commanded.

Denethon had retreated, trying to save the survivors. Hestophes, the High King’s captain-general, started in pursuit; an epic pursuit that had lasted four moons and covered more than a thousand miles. In the final stages of that pursuit Denethon’s survivors were being chased by three armies, almost a half million men to his thirty thousand at that point. One of the armies, one less than a quarter his numbers, had caught them in an ambush and just three days later the pursuit had ended when Denethon had surrendered to the man who was now Duke of Mexico.

Elspeth grinned at Denethon. “General, do you know why you have my confidence?”

He shook his head.

Elspeth smiled. “Because there were so many times you could have legitimately chucked the whole thing and ridden away from the debacle there in the east.”

The general leaned close, putting his arm around his wife and kissed her. “That, or another explanation is that I had a treasure beyond measure waiting for me at home. A treasure worth risking everything for.”

Elspeth tipped the shiny brass object in front of her down on its side again, and flicked one end with her fingers. It spun in a glittering arc, not moving from the spot where she’d started it spinning.

“Have any of you heard the High King’s pistol described, or a description of how it works?” she asked them.

Everyone shook their heads. “How about Duke Tuck’s pistol and rifle? Did any of you know that he had two pistols, one he gave to Lady Judy?”

Again there were headshakes. She put her finger out and stopped the shiny golden case from spinning. “My husband has asked about a hundred times, in my hearing, how the High King plans to stop millions of soldiers of the God-King when next they come. I’ve heard it a few times from Count Quillan as well. While I haven’t heard General Denethon’s opinion, I doubt if it differs.”

“No, it doesn’t,” the general announced “If they were to obligingly line up, and if we could pick one spot and fight an all-or-nothing battle, we might have a chance if we armed every able-bodied man in the kingdom, and none of the God-King’s soldiers shot back.

“A logical change in tactics on their part would be to break down into smaller columns, each as large as our army, and attack in many places. We couldn’t anticipate all of the attacks, and once they broke through...” He spread his hands and shrugged.

Elspeth held up the object she’d been playing with. “This, my friends, is the High King’s answer to the question. I received this and some others just like it, this morning. Moreover, I have plans for the weapons that will fire it.”

“And this is the answer to our prayers?” Freidal asked.

“Pretty much. The rifle will hold six of these shells at a time. They fire as fast as you pull the trigger. All six shots in the time it takes to say “Ready, aim, fire!”

“And how long does it take to reload?” Denethon asked.

“Two or three heartbeats,” Elspeth told them.

“Each round, or all six?” Quillan asked, leaning forward intently.

“All six, Count Quillan. Once reloaded the rifle then fires each time you pull the trigger.”

She pulled a heavy iron cylinder from her skirts and placed it on the table before them. It was five inches long and five inches in diameter. “This is heavy and bulky,” she told them. “At least at first, we’ll probably want to arm cavalry and officers with these. Then some specialty units, until finally we have enough for everyone.”

She lifted the iron cylinder up, leaving five of the brass tubes, like the one she’d been toying with, standing on the table. She took the cylinder, turned it over and shoved the brass tubes into it. It didn’t take very long. “That’s it.”

She pulled one tube out and handed it to her husband, handed another to Quillan and another to Denethon. “There, on the flat bottom, is a little thing. That’s the same sort of primer that fires mortar shells and detonates them.”

Quillan put the cartridge down carefully on the table, laying it on its side and looking at it nervously.

Elspeth picked up hers and slapped it, base down, on the table, hard enough to cause an echo from the walls. Everyone jerked in surprise. “The High King has many able men, and they’ve been working on these. They’ve found ways to both make them explode more reliably, yet, at the same time, less prone to accidents.

“Weapons like this will fire twelve times to our enemy’s once, and actually in practice perhaps as many as eighteen times. Having each of our soldiers able to fire such weapons will go a long way to evening the odds. However, first the weapons must be produced. The rifles, pistols, the bullets, the primers, the brass casings, and the smokeless fireseed. If we start today, we might, possibly, have our first weapon ready this fall. We would have trouble coming to full production until a year from now, and it will likely take two years after that to fully equip the army,” Elspeth reported.

Quillan warily reached out and knocked the cartridge over. “We don’t have three years. A year, maybe. Two years? Only if we fight and win many battles.”

Elspeth bobbed her head. “True. But if we don’t start now, it will never happen. We must pretend that we have the three years.”

“Even if this detracts from the other projects?” Freidal asked his wife.

“Freidal, either we play to win, or we’ll lose. We can’t hope for a tie, can we? We must do the best we can, from day to day, and hope that buys us the time we need.

“And that’s the real subject of why we’re here, talking. Your father, Freidal, was murdered. Alros was very quick to investigate and render justice to those who did it. While I can find no fault with the emotion, and I certainly understand the necessity of a swift response, I think it was too fast. I think there might have been other plotters, plotters beyond Styphon.

“Even now, we know plots are sprouting everywhere in the kingdom.”

It was true, as they all knew.

“Thus, we have to look at these weapons and ammunition in a slightly different light. The High King has sent us full drawings and working models. I propose we announce only the drawings.”

“Why is that, Queen Elspeth?” Denethon asked.

“Because, you see, I’m a little concerned about General Khoogra and his activities.”

“Besides being a pompous idiot, you mean?” Freidal laughed.

“Husband, I would ask you to think back on your first impressions of me, then reflect more carefully on what you just said.”

Freidal chuckled, smiling at her fondly. “How could I forget? You find a way to remind me every day. Sometimes, several times a day.”

“General Khoogra has three grown sons and a grown daughter. The daughter is the oldest, and was married to Count South March’s oldest son before the young man’s untimely death in the war. She has a son, and her youngest brother is currently fostering with South March as well.

“Khoogra’s eldest son is fostering with Mountain Wall. He and Count Mountain Wall’s younger son are inseparable. I assume you’ve all heard the stories about that young man.”

Freidal grimaced, but Xitki actually blushed before he spoke. “Mountain Wall has been a friend since I was a boy. His youngest son can’t be trusted near a woman. Any woman. If she’s lower class he simply smashes her in the face, knocks her down and has his way with her. Noble women, he’s a little more delicate with. He ties them up, gags them and then has his way with them, all the while threatening dire things to the woman’s family, friends and retainers if she tells anyone about what happened to her.”

The count grinned wolfishly. “One of these days he’ll run out of girls without male kin, then he’ll learn the error of his ways.”

Elspeth banged her hand down hard on the tabletop. “If I ever see that son of Khoogra, he’s a dead man, do you understand?”

“I think he understands that, Elspeth,” Freidal said, trying to calm her down. “It’s why he’s never accepted an invitation to court or even Baytown.”

Elspeth ignored him. “Oh, and the last bastard son of Khoogra? He was fostering with Count Echanistra, except he ran away at the winter solstice and is now living with the Northern Ruthani, raiding the northern counties.”

Freidal laughed. “I assume there’s a point to this?”

“Of course,” Elspeth told them. “I want to hang the bastard and while I’m at it, hang his sons. Right now we don’t have any proof that would allow us to do it. So, I propose we gather that evidence.”

Xitki Quillan shook his head. “Lady Elspeth, I respect you, but I won’t countenance the use of tactics like the High King’s Duke Skranga uses.”

Elspeth’s grin was wicked. “Count, at home, the police are specifically forbidden to use such tactics. No, I have a different proposition. We will copy the High King’s designs, a copy to you, a copy to Denethon, a copy for us. You and Denethon seek to duplicate the results.

“The ‘real’ copy we’ll give to General Khoogra and ask him to research and tell us what we need to do to manufacture the weapons, to insure that they are practical. I don’t know who he’s plotting with, but if we have arms like this and they don’t, they would be at a serious disadvantage. We’ll watch him, spy on his contacts, and if any of them start making these rifles and when Khoogra says they don’t work, why, we’ll know for sure, won’t we? And it would be proof, sufficient for your nobles, as well.”

Freidal nodded. Indeed, it would suffice. Actually, it would go beyond sufficient, to truly damning. There wasn’t anyone in the kingdom who didn’t understand their desperate straits if the God-King marched millions of soldiers north. Deliberately sabotaging the defense would get a quick verdict.

“We are still half a half palm width before the meeting starts,” Xitki told them. “Is there something else?”

“As a matter of fact there is. The High King is building ships,” Elspeth told them.

“I’ve heard of that,” Xitki told her. “The tales seem to grow with each telling. Ships that mount not just one or two guns, but dozens. Ships that can sail into the wind without oars. Some tales are even wilder.”

“Like ships that can sail into the wind without sails or oars?” Elspeth asked with a grin.

Xitki nodded, now wary.

“The High King has eleven ships now that mount between thirty and forty cannon and two mortars. You will be pleased to know that those mortars were designed with priests of Styphon in mind; they can accommodate even the fattest priest. The ships use sails, but yes, they can sail into the wind. The High King has a small ship that travels around Harphax City’s harbor without sails or oars, using the same sort of engine his steam pullers do. Right now, it’s used to pull ships into place along the docks.

“The High King wishes us to send him a trusted, a highly trusted person, familiar with ships, east to him. That person will be taught how to build these ships. That person will be assigned to one of the ships and will learn how to operate them at sea. Then, that person will return here and we can start building ships like the High King’s.”

“A program that will, no doubt, take years,” Freidal told them.

“Of course. But there are some things we can do to shorten how long it will take. Teams should be set to cutting suitable timber in the mountains. That timber should be brought to South Port.”

“Just like that!” Xitki laughed. “Cut in the mountains and hauled to South Port!”

“Yes, Count. Cut east and north of your county seat at River City and hauled there. Then floated down to the sea here at Baytown. Then lashed to even larger rafts and moved down the coast to South Port.”

“That will take many men,” Xitki mused.

“Not as many as Lord Tuck’s wedding gift to you, my husband,” Alros told Denethon.

“I thought I was to count myself lucky I had his blessing and that the war was over.”

“That too, but this is something more tangible. What is the most important metal that Zarthan lacks?”

“Iron,” Freidal said without hesitation. He frowned. “He knows of a place to mine iron?”

She laughed lightly. “Husband, a place where you can scoop it from the ground with buckets. An upside down mountain.”

“The High King was a little careless with his boundary line, and Lord Tuck has gotten him to adjust our eastern boundary, north of the Salt Sea. I’ll show you the place on the map, after this meeting.”

“We would need coal to smelt it,” Denethon murmured.

“Coal we have, albeit not very good, southeast of Baytown,” Freidal told him.

“One last thing, husband. We have plans for building some of the High King’s steam pullers. So far, we have not. That has to change and at once. Our kingdom is not flat, not most places. But Count Quillan’s county would enormously benefit from quick and cheap transportation. There are other places. We need to decide where we should concentrate our efforts. For one thing, the High King is planning on having his steam puller roads at the Mud River in three years. We’d be remiss not to have a steam road of our own ready, across the river.”

Freidal shook his head. “I don’t see any advantage to that.”

Denethon choked, sputtered and Alros offered him a sip from his wine cup. “Lord King!” Denethon said after he recovered. “I was on the receiving end of what steam pullers can do! I thought we couldn’t afford to build the steel rails they require.

“Sire! Captain-General Oaxhan laughed at Hestophes’ claim to have fifty thousand soldiers opposing us. The only way, he told us over and over, that Hestophes could have numbers like that was to have called up all of the militia.

“Now we know. Not only had Hestophes called up the militia, but he also assigned those men to protect their homes, because the hundred thousand Hostigi regulars he really had were quite enough to do the job! Before Three Hills we heard reports that the High King was to our east, with a hundred thousand men. All of us sniffed at those numbers; sure they were the terrified dreams of scouts, hunted night and day by the Hostigi.

“Imagine the God-King’s surprise when he met the High King less than two moon-quarters after Three Hills and found that the High King opposed him with a quarter million men. It’s true; the Hostigi flogged half the horses in their realm to death to move their cannon south after Three Hills to reinforce the High King, but it was a cheap price to pay for a victory like that!

“King Freidal, in the time we took to march north from the Big River to Three Hills, the High King mustered his army in the Great Kingdoms, moved them twelve hundred miles to Xiphlon by steam puller, ferried them across the river and then marched them the four hundred and fifty miles to where the armies met. That should have taken the entire campaign season, not two moons.

“Having steam puller roads, Sire, may make the difference whether the realm lives or dies.”

Freidal sighed explosively. “All we have to do is start men cutting trees in Mountain Wall, dragging those trees to the sea, then floating them to South Port. Start scratching iron from the desert, and, by-the-bye, send coal from Baytown to support that. While we’re at it, build lots of steam puller roads, the pullers themselves and their wagons. I have no idea where the money is going to come from.”

There was a gentle knock on a door not far from where they were sitting. Freidal spoke loudly, “Come!”

One of the palace servants appeared. “Sire, the council has gathered, they await your pleasure.”

“My pleasure will take a half finger’s width. At that time, just let them in.”

“Yes, sire!” the servant said, bowed and left.

“So, what do we do right now?” the king asked the others.

“Give General Khoogra the rifle plans right after the meeting,” Elspeth told her husband.

“You and I will meet this evening, Sire,” Xitki told his King. “I know where we can get the men for most of what you want. Of course, it’ll cost Styphon for it, though.”

“Styphon is dead and gone,” Alros said. She knew about that, after all. She’d seen to it personally.

“True, Alros. But, even so, the Kingdom’s coffers have done well selling fireseed. All those revenues accrue now to the Crown. Alas, Echanistra has had plenty of opportunity to shoot off all that we send them against the raids by the Northern Ruthani. The army consumes great quantities of fireseed as well. The queen tells us that the High King has shown us how to make smokeless fireseed. We can charge a premium for that!”

“For a while,” Elspeth warned him. “Then it will be as common as sand and you will just make a decent profit.”

Freidal stood, as did Elspeth, both looking at the main door to the chamber. “They hate me,” Elspeth told him quietly.

“Some of our nobles, lady wife. Everyone else loves you. And everyone else includes all of my soldiers. It is most remarkable, Elspeth, how highly they regard you.”

Council meetings were long, boring, filled with petty complaints and jealousies. Freidal hated them and had no idea why his wife came away from them pleased and excited. Not just some of the time, but every time.


	2. Vacation in Paradise

I

Tanda Havra slid through the tent flap like a soft vagrant breeze and stepped outside into the brisk air of the early morning; the sun still behind the wall of mountains to the east. She took a deep breath of the heavily scented air and sighed with contented pleasure.

She was a young woman in her late twenties, medium tall, with dusky skin, black hair and brown eyes so dark that they were almost black.

She’d thought her husband demented when he’d proposed this trip to her. “A belated honeymoon,” he told her. Then he had to describe what a honeymoon was and that had been just one more thing to add to the very, very long list of things about her husband that were out of this world.

Of course, Tanda was, in all ways, just as much from another milieu as he was. Except she was here on purpose and he was here by accident.

By rights, he should have been dead. That he lived was the result of two acts of fate. The first one was that the paratemporal conveyor that had brought him and six others to this place and time hadn’t been one operated by the Paratime Police, and secondly she, a cultural anthropologist on loan to the Paracops from the University of Dhergabar, had discovered him and his wards.

Not that she was actually a citizen of the Home Time Line, as they called it. No, she was from a very primitive version of Earth, one where civilization had only slowly developed. Her world, in fact, could best be described as “undeveloped.” She’d been born into a Stone Age village, where the most dangerous weapons were stone knives and spears with stone points. They’d mastered fire but not bows and arrows. They didn’t even have spear throwers.

She’d learned to hunt as a young girl. She was relatively tall, thin and dark, while the rest of her village were short, fair-skinned and heavy. It was no secret that a raiding party had come through nine moons before she’d been born and that her mother had been raped by some of the raiders.

After Tanda’s mother died bearing Tanda, her father had turned his face from his daughter and she’d had to fend for herself. She’d done so, right up until the final break when he’d turned his back on her at the village fire. That hadn’t turned out like her father had hoped, because the Grandmothers of the village had laughed at him.

So she’d taken a job offer with a party of traders who had been passing through her village. That had led her to where she was today. She’d been gathered in as a possible recruit by Home Time Line traders. For most of those recruited, they would spend a few years at menial labor, doing jobs that those of the Home Time Line wouldn’t do for themselves, then be returned home, relatively wealthy, but shorn of their memories of their experiences.

For Tanda it had been different. She was, literally, one in a million, a genius for her time. She’d galloped through all of the classes they’d let her take, until one day she was a University of Dhergabar graduate cultural anthropologist. Only later did she learn that if she’d ever shown any interest in a technical field, she’d have lost her memories and been returned home at once.

But she hadn’t.

While she was a beginning university student, a Paracop conveyor had picked up a hitchhiker on Fourth Level, Hispano-Columbian Subsector. That man had been a local policeman, who was subsequently, entirely inadvertently, deposited in a time line of the Fourth Level, Styphon’s House Subsector. That is if you want to call beating a Paracop to the draw inadvertent.

Calvin Morrison had been ripped from his home time line and dropped into a time line where civilization was about where his had been around 1620, roughly three hundred years before he’d been born. He’d landed in a place called Hostigos, a princedom in the kingdom of Hos-Harphax.

Styphon was the god, his priests told people, who could control the demons in fireseed–gunpowder. The priests of Styphon had spent a few hundred years building a rat’s nest of kingdoms, princedoms, duchies and baronies, all at war with each other. Plots generated plots; bloodletting started blood feuds. It was hell, if you had to live there, but heaven if you had a monopoly on firearms and gunpowder.

Styphon had tried to move into Hostigos, ruled by Prince Ptosphes. Prince Ptosphes had considered his options and come to the reluctant conclusion that the alternatives were slavery or death. He chose to resist, coming under Styphon’s Ban: that is, no man could sell fireseed or fireseed weapons to Hostigos except on pain of death.

Everyone who had been put under Styphon’s Ban had buckled–or died–before then. Certainly no one expected a minor prince of a minor principality of a minor kingdom in one small corner of the world to successfully resist.

When Calvin Morrison showed the Hostigi how to make fireseed without the priests of Styphon, he became Lord Kalvan. He won battle after battle, defeating one powerful enemy after another. Finally he’d taken control of most of the kingdoms of Hos-Harphax and had been declared a Great King himself.

More wars, more battles, and Styphon had been thrown down as well as some of the other Great Kings. All were forced to either bow to Kalvan on bended knee–or die. Kalvan went from a corporal in the Pennsylvania State Police to a Lord, and thence to Great King and finally High King within four years.

She’d been caught up in that almost from the very first. The Paratime Police wanted to catch the man who’d shot one of their cops; thousands of man-hours of labor had been expended tracking down where Calvin Morrison had exited the Paratime conveyor that had accidentally picked him up. They’d found the location, then the Deputy Chief of the Paratime Police, Verkan Vall, went in person to do his duty: kill the man who knew the Paratime Secret.

Home Time Line was undoubtedly correct, Tanda thought. The knowledge that men walked the world from another time and place without the knowledge of their fellows would shatter most civilizations.

Home Time Line was like a giant leech, sucking sustenance from every place it went. They were fairly benign with most inhabited time lines, mostly buying art and grains, but on time lines that had no people they were rapacious–they did what they wanted and took all that they wanted. But always, always, they watched and monitored every time line with people present.

For a long time Tanda had simply accepted that as the way things were; she’d been conditioned, and she eventually learned never to think about it. It turned out that such conditioning was quite robust–until the world started to turn to shit around you, and then a person’s will to survive rapidly broke down the conditioning. That had happened to her.

She’d been co-opted as a student to study an adjacent time line to Kalvan’s. That time line had quickly become a very dangerous place to be, and after a few moons she’d been pulled out and placed on Kalvan’s timeline itself.

Tanda had been fascinated with what happened when a primitive culture, like the one she’d been born into, met a more advanced culture. Sometimes the primitive culture imploded and died in a few years. Other times the primitive culture survived; sometimes, it even thrived. It was something she wanted to learn: what made the difference between life and death for entire peoples and their cultures.

After the Peace of Kalvan had settled over Hostigos and the rest of the known world, she’d gotten a permanent posting with the Lost Ruthani, remnants of the original inhabitants of this continent, before the Zarthani had come. The Zarthani had been Indo-European migrants who, for some unknown reason, had decided to move east, instead of west. They’d crossed the Bering Straits, traveling quickly through the cold regions and eventually arrived in what Kalvan would have thought of as the Pacific Northwest.

There the Zarthani invaders begun to war with the Ruthani tribes. That war had lasted for more than two thousand years now. First the Zarthani had triumphed because they had iron swords and iron armor. They went on to develop better bows, then steel, then crossbows, swords and armor.

The Ruthani had been capable warriors, but had started with no technology with metals except gold and copper, the softer, more pliable metals. The continual wars spurred the Zarthani to one technical innovation after another. The Ruthani had trouble trying to adopt to the simplest technology of their attackers, although they used weapons and armor that they stole from the bodies of their enemies, they had no understanding at all of what it took to make their own.

Eventually the descendants of the Zarthani occupied much of North America south of the Cold Lands and north of the southwestern deserts. They followed the major rivers east and south, eventually reaching the Great Eastern Ocean.

The Ruthani were relegated to the less habitable places that the Zarthani hadn’t wanted to bother with. That consisted of the lands east of the coastal strip in the Northwest, and the fringes of the Cold Lands to the north, and the desert southwest.

In the west were the remnants of the old city-states of Zarthan, under a man who called himself king, but who was nominally first-among-equals. The current king had been bequeathed a legacy of gradually more desperate fights to survive that had resulted in more unity in the city states than ever before.

The Lost Ruthani, the people Tanda had been living with, were remnants of the original native tribes that had been pushed into the southwestern deserts, caught there between the Zarthani to the east, west and north and the Mexicotál to the south.

The Mexicotál were protected by hundreds of miles of trackless desert; no man rode south and survived. The Lost Ruthani were also protected by the desert, but it was a precarious existence, caught as they were between two millstones.

Kalvan cast down Styphon, and in the last days of their power in the east, the survivors of Styphon had gathered themselves together, led by a few of their younger, more ambitious priests, and traveled to Zarthan on the Great Western Ocean.

Tanda has been content, living a simple village life. She was a tribal herbalist, living in a village called Mogdai, in what Calvin knew as central Arizona.

She’d known war was brewing. It had been no secret that the priests of Styphon were conspiring with the King of Zarthan and the God-King of the Mexicotál to once again go to war against High King Kalvan.

It had seemed insane, on the face of it. The Mexicotál were a seriously sick race. Priests, nobles and soldiers lived off the fruits of the labors of millions of serfs and slaves. Their gods treated the Mexicotál with special blessings: their lands grew not just one crop a year, but in many places they harvested two and sometimes three crops a year. The God-Kings of the Mexicotál kept the population in check by the simple expedient of taking a few people every moon quarter up atop one of their pyramids and cutting out their living hearts.

As popular as that was, cutting out the hearts of prisoners or foreigners was even more so. Had it been a handful it would have been repugnant. But there were hundreds of Mexicotál cities, thousands of towns and tens of thousand villages. All had pyramids; all had sacrifices four times a moon. Two million people a year died on the pyramids, they’d learned.

Tanda had thought she was safe. The Paracops were in overall charge with the local operation farmed out to University of Dhergabar scholars. The scholars would observe and when the soldiers began to march they’d pass a warning and Tanda would have had plenty of time to escape. Or so she’d thought.

Except there was one thing that most Home Time Line people seemed to have in common: arrogance. The second most common attribute was greed. Thus, the representative of the University in Zarthan was collecting the money for non-existent spies and pocketing it. The scholar who was Tanda’s boss was merely incompetent and cheap: his recon probe had stopped working and he hadn’t fixed it, or let anyone know that there was a problem.

Sure, she was supposed to feel good about the fact that her boss had his memories wiped and was happily cleaning toilets down on the Fifth Level, in a mine office somewhere, and that the scholar in Zarthan had been taken out and shot.

But the fact remained she’d had a finger width’s warning. Ten minutes. She’d gathered herself and a young woman who occasionally helped her with her herb gathering and they had run to offer to help fight for the village.

She was, after all, Tanda Havra: that meant Kills-from-Behind in the local language. When she’d learned what her name meant here, she’d shaken her head ruefully. Who would have thought that the words her people used would have any existence here? Or be so different in meaning?

One thing led to another as she’d fought to escape the village. The village elders had elected to die in defense of the village, even though they had to know it was a futile gesture. The few remaining old people and young children were sent away, with Tanda to protect them.

She’d been away from the party, hunting, when some Mexicotál soldiers had captured the party. When she learned that, she dropped the deer she’d killed with her knife, stalked into camp and killed one of the soldiers. Tazi, girl of Mogdai village, had knocked one of the soldiers down and Ulnai, also known as Jumper, boy of Mogdai, had put his knife into the soldier many times, until he was dead.

The third soldier, his fireseed weapon empty, turned and ran–off a cliff in the dark.

She’d realized more soldiers were coming and went to meet them, intent on giving the survivors of Mogdai a chance to escape. She’d seen a man she thought was an officer, and lunged at him with her knife held low for a killing stroke.

She laughed, deep and hearty, at the memory. It had been a fair fight! A fair fight! A draw, though! He’d knocked her knife away, but she’d used the time to wrap her fingers around his throat. She didn’t know to this day if she would have lived long enough to kill him. Instead, a soldier had screamed for her to surrender to the High King.

She’d let go, and a heartbeat later realized just how many rifles had been aimed at her. Honestly, the man she would eventually marry would likely have survived if she hadn’t lifted her hands away from his throat and she’d have died.

But that wasn’t what had happened.

It wasn’t just an ordinary Hostigi patrol she’d found: the patrol had found something on their own: a man, a woman, and five girls. She’d known almost at once they were from Out Time, because the man she’d attacked carried a repeating rifle, where none existed on the Kalvan Time Line. In fact, a lot of the gear the party carried didn’t belong on the Aryan-Transpacific time line.

Tuck had already mislaid the woman and the woman’s daughter. Everything Tanda had heard about what had happened since young Lieutenant Gamelin’s patrol had met the strangers had screamed “time travelers” to Tanda. Sure enough, she contacted her base and found out that was the case. Except they hadn’t been brought by the Paracops, but by someone else. No one knew what had happened to the woman and her daughter, but the consensus was that they were dead.

Worse, it was clear that the efforts by the unknowns to retrieve the man, Tuck, and the four remaining girls ended the instant Tanda joined the group. Which meant that the others knew her cover as well.

She sighed.

It had been a busy three quarters of a year after that. There had been battles–lots and lots of battles. People near and dear to her had died in those battles, and tens of thousands of their enemies. Tuck’s style of combat was a mixture of raids and ambushes and sometimes both at once. He fought against enemies who assumed their enemies would meet them on a battlefield, line up in nice neat lines and slug it out. Tuck’s tactics had been devastating. 

Her orders were clear: she was supposed to have killed Tuck and the girls the first chance she had. That had been the end of her conditioning, even if she hadn’t known it at the time. Hadron Dalla, now the Chief of the Paratime Police, had explained it to her personally. “Conditioning will convince you to do something you accept. As soon as your conscience starts talking to you in opposition to that conditioning, the conditioning starts to break down. The more your conscience talks, the faster the breakdown.”

She’d smiled benignly at Tanda, making Tanda want to beat the woman to death. “Think of it as a final fail-safe, so that you can’t be ordered to do something truly against your will.”

It was all history, now. She’d fallen in love with Tuck within days of their meeting. When he’d given a grand and wonderful name to the daughter of a village woman who had died birthing the girl, she relaxed to the inevitable. She smiled at the thought. Not that she hadn’t made him work to find out what she’d decided!

The first rays of the sun speared through the low-hanging clouds, revealing more and more around her, including the cascade of water off a cliff that was thousands of feet tall. This was Tuck’s idea of “scenery.”

She knew she still resented so much of what the Paracops and Home Time Line people had done to her. They lied, they misdirected, and they didn’t mention things they didn’t feel she had any need to know. She’d heard tales of the Great Canyon of the Mud River. When Tuck had said they were going to see it, she had yawned. She’d seen plenty of canyons!

He’d insisted on a blindfold and walked her to the edge and held her arm, as she took off the blindfold and looked down. If they’d been alone, she’d have taken him then and there. The view had been primal, striking her at a level she didn’t even understand. Unsurpassed beauty!

And now, here, in the lands of the King of Zarthan, existed a mountain valley of equally unsurpassed beauty. She’d seen plenty of mountain valleys, too, but absolutely nothing like this one. Even Lady Inisa, lent to her by Queen Elspeth as a companion, had stood gaping in wonder when they first looked into this valley.

Here and now, Tuck appeared next to her. He grinned. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

“This place should be preserved at all costs,” Tanda told him.

“Freidal has seen this place. He agrees it’s pretty, for sure. However, when it comes to preserving things at all costs, he has other priorities.”

Tanda nodded, understanding. She’d never truly understood it; she suspected a great many nobles didn’t understand it either. But true nobles, men like Freidal, her husband, men like the High King and Count Errock of Outpost, knew their greatest duty to the people they ruled were two-fold: to keep them safe and treat them fairly.

King Freidal ruled about two million people in the loosely allied city-states of Zarthan. The recent wars had brought them closer than at any time in a thousand years, but it was an uneasy relationship. Even now, though, the threat of the God-King was doing yeoman work to keep the disparate groups close knit. Now, all men knew just how many lived in the Heartlands of the God-King. Two hundred million people, plus ten million soldiers and another million soldiers in what had been their Northern Regime.

Tanda smiled. The Northern Regime had fallen to her husband–well, half of it anyway. A quarter had risen in the High King’s name and the High King himself had taken the last of the four relatively large towns in the north. No one knew for sure exactly how many of the God-King’s soldiers fell in the war, but the number was probably at least one and a half million.

It was enough to make a person dizzy!

Tanda saw Tuck glance at the tents around them. A half dozen sentries walked the outer perimeter of the camp, another half dozen were gathered around the fire, drinking the local tea to keep off the early morning chill.

“Care for a walk, Tanda?”

She nodded, curious.

Four men fell in behind them as they walked from their perch on a small rise about a mile from where that tremendous fall of water splashed into a basin. From the vegetation it was clear that if the wind blew very much, quite a lot of water soaked everything within range.

Tuck walked steadily and when a vagrant breeze set that awesome stream of water drifting their way, he took her hand but kept walking. They went another hundred yards, their guards still in tow, everyone now soaked to the skin.

Tuck turned to the senior lieutenant of the guard. “Lady Tanda and I want some privacy. We’ll be there, do you understand?” He pointed at a small promontory a hundred yards ahead, barely visible in the misting drizzle from the waterfall.

The guard looked at his duke bleakly. He had no choice, of course, no matter how dangerous on the face of it this was. Tanda walked further with Tuck. The spray went from a fine mist to a heavy drizzle. It was cold and uncomfortable.

He stopped and lifted his head towards the place where the water went off the cliff above them, quite invisible in the spray. “Do you think they can hear us?”

Tanda grimaced, knowing who “they” were, when Tuck talked like this.

“Tuck, my former boss is as honorable a person there is. She said they would never monitor us, without telling me first. The sky is still blue, the grass is still green.”

“The water won’t mess up their equipment? The sound of the waterfall won’t mess up the pickup?”

She shrugged. “Tuck, I was never permitted to learn about such things. You probably know the answers better than I do. Assume that yes, they can hear us just fine.”

“Well, if you’re listening, if you’re smart, you will never act on what you hear, because then I will know you for the lying sons-of-bitches I think you are.”

He sighed. “They won’t interfere?”

“Of course not. Would you?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to think good-hearted people anywhere would lend a hand to someone in need.”

“Tuck, they aren’t good-hearted, for all that they are people, okay?”

“You worked for them.”

“They lied to me, Tuck. They lied over and over again. Mostly by omission, I’ll grant them that.”

“You make it sound like you aren’t one of them.”

“I am–and I’m not. I come from a place where the wildest Ruthani would seem civilized. I was a good student and learned my lessons, and eventually I became a field anthropologist. A cultural anthropologist.”

“And you just happened to come by your fighting skills naturally?”

For the first time in their marriage she was angry. “My mother was raped by raiders. They were tall and dark, with thin, fine features. I look like them, not the people I grew up with. They despised me; my father back-sided me at a council fire. Do you know what that means?”

“I doubt if it was pleasant.”

“It wasn’t. The old women of my village saved me when they laughed at my father. Tuck, from the time I was old enough to walk, I had to defend myself, I had to feed myself. I learned to hunt and I learned to fight. It was that or starve, or be beaten bloody and raped by any man who wanted me.

“The people you don’t like taught me nothing technical. Nothing at all. I know nothing about listening devices. As you may remember, I have never heard of earthquakes or volcanoes. They never even mentioned pretty pieces of scenery.”

He nodded.

“Tuck, I swear to you, even they are getting sick of this. You can go only so far telling yourself that when you are killing innocent men, women, and children you’re justified. Men and women who have done you no hurt, never intended you any hurt and whose sole crime was to be at the wrong place and time.

“Worse, they are facing an enemy now who has decided to play rough; not only are those enemies playing fast and loose with their laws, they kill with even less compunction than the ‘good guys.’”

She shivered again and Tuck put his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him. She snuggled against him.

“I told you I quit, Tuck. I still have contacts, but I can’t tell you who they are.”

Tuck chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry much about it on that score.”

“I can’t speak, Tuck. I’m sorry.”

“I know. Now I’m teasing and that’s not very nice.”

“None of this is nice.”

He hugged her, leaned close and nibbled her ear. After a few moments of that, he whispered, “And they’re going to leave us alone?”

“Yes.”

“Even if Kalvan and I exchange thoughts on this and that?”

“They will still leave you alone. You have to be very careful, because the one thing they won’t tolerate is public disclosure.”

“I imagine it’ll be a while before anyone learns English, and even that will be coded. You understand why we have to compare notes?”

“Technology,” she breathed softly.

“Exactly. The High King was a cop where we come from and I raised horses; both of us are ex-soldiers. Technology isn’t our forte. The girls are bright and quick, but they were very, very young.”

“They’ve done better than anyone could have imagined!”

Tuck chuckled. “A queen, a countess twice over, and two noble ladies without titles. I have to agree.”

“One of those noble ladies is the foremost scholar west of the Great Mountains and the other is...” Tanda’s voice trailed away. “Tuck, to be honest, I don’t understand what Lydia is.”

“Well for now, a person who teaches music and happens to be the Secretary of the Council of Tecpan.”

“Happens to be!” Tanda snorted in derision.

“Would it make any difference to you if I told you that when I woke up, John had dirtied his nethers, and Lady Inisa was seeing to it?”

Tanda laughed. “Husband, you know how I feel about the things nobility brings attendant with it. They are mostly things I never imagined letting others do for me. Still, dirty nethers...the only reason I feel any guilt is that Inisa is such a sweet woman.”

“She is. Did Freidal describe her situation to you?”

“Her mother died when she was very young, her father died when she was a teenager and now her brothers are dead. Her father was a younger son; the brothers were more or less gutter trash who decided to support Styphon. Lady Inisa was fostered with Xitki Quillan’s household after her father died. He speaks highly of her.”

He was silent for a moment. “In the war I fought in back home, I’d never permit someone with ties like that to our enemies get so close. Inisa is safe, though, I believe.”

Tanda nodded. “I can’t see her a fanatical adherent of Styphon.”

“Her brothers were fanatical–right up until Styphon’s money ran out, then they ran like jackrabbits. They were caught when Alros took the Styphon Temple Farm in South March. As nobles they were simply shot out of hand, unlike the priests.”

The priests of Styphon had been marched to Baytown, loaded into very large cannon and “fired” into the narrows of the bay. Even the High King wished now he’d thought of some other way to kill the priests of Styphon. The High King had quickly seen that apostate priests were more useful than their “canonized” brethren and offered them clemency if they would recant. Alros had to deal with those who murdered her father and hadn’t felt very clement.

Tanda looked at him. “You’re concerned because Alros had Inisa’s brothers shot.”

Tuck nodded agreement. “They might have been pond scum, but they were family, as I’ve heard said.”

“But you trust her enough to leave John alone with her?”

“My experience with babies was limited until recently. If I was someone’s mortal enemy, someone I was plotting against, I might have trouble doing what has to be done to change dirty nethers.”

“Husband, you have trouble doing what has to be done with babies, all the time.”

He grinned. “True. Also, Count Errock and Lady Linnea were up and about early, and Linnea was having a similar issue with her own issue’s issue.”

“You’re terrible!” Tanda told her husband. “How a woman that tiny could have a baby that large...” she shook her head in wonder.

“Women are designed for it, I guess.”

Tanda reached over and kissed him hard for a few heartbeats.

“Mmmm,” the Duke of Mexico said when she pulled away, smiling. “I’m all for going back to the tent, drying each other off and crawling back in the furs and warming up.”

“That, husband, was in gratitude from all the women of the all the kingdoms–that you and Kalvan understand enough about childbirth to realize the importance of clean hands.”

“According to Freidal, as Elspeth was nearing her time, she said that the one good thing about being awake during the whole process was so that she could shoot the first midwife who came towards her with dirty hands.”

“I brought along my knife and my pistols when my time came,” Tanda said matter-of-factly.

“Well, the training and retraining and the inspections have certainly had an effect on the number of problems with child birth.”

“Instead of half the women and half the children dying,” Tanda agreed, “it’s less than one in twenty-five.” She sneezed suddenly.

“I think you are right, Tuck. It’s time to get out of this mist and get dry and warm.”

“Do you regret having come on this trip?” he asked as they walked back to rejoin their guards.

“Of course not. One thing I’ve learned is to trust you. This wasn’t something I would have thought of, but it was very worthwhile. Meeting with Freidal and Elspeth was a very good idea as well.”

“Freidal, Alros, Denethon and Xitki Quillan, as well as Elspeth,” he reminded her.

“It is hard to believe that a year and a half ago, we were mortal enemies, except for Elspeth–with her we were merely not friends.”

“We’ve come a long way,” he agreed. “But there is still a ways to go.”

“And tomorrow we start for home,” Tanda said, and then sighed. “It has been a very good trip, but I’ll tell you true, Tuck–the thought of being warm again has become nearly as attractive as the view.”

II

Count Echanistra led Noia down a great many steps, until they were in a stone room, far beneath the ground. The count bowed one last time to her, waved at a guardsman and then left.

The guard sergeant looked her up and down. “Do ya know anything about guard mount?”

“I’ve seen the guard changed. Elsewhere.”

“The count said he would explain.”

“He did.”

“Fine. Come then.” He led her down a corridor and into a smaller room. He handed her a rifle and two pistols. “Can you use these?”

“I’m better with fireseed weapons than I am with the sword. I can clean and polish a sword; I can pull it from its sheath without slicing bits and pieces off myself or the man next to me. I’m good with loading and firing a rifle, better, but not much, with pistols.”

“That’ll do,” the other told her. “Why is your voice so hoarse?”

From trying to talk in a lower register, she thought angrily. “I'm coming down with something, I suspect,” she said without heat. “This dampness...”

“Aye, this is that time of year. Come then.”

A few heartbeats later Noia was one of a line of soldiers, standing in a stone room, the rain dripping from the eaves not a dozen paces away. Flares lit the night, and the sergeant went down the line. When he got to Noia, he growled at her. “Tighten your rifle strap! You aren’t county militia any more! You’re the Count’s City Watch! Have some pride!”

Noia knew she had to respond and thought nothing of it. As she’d done for days, she pitched her voice lower. “Yes, Sergeant!”

Her body betrayed her, and her voice cracked on the last word, dropping in pitch quite a bit.

Around her came titters from some of the others.

The sergeant glared at them. “Oh, yes! Laugh! None of you ever had your voice crack! None of you ever lacked hairs on your chin or the ability to stand tall with your best part!”

A voice came from the other end of the line of soldiers.

“Sergeant, my mother swears I croaked like a bullfrog the day I was born!”

“There’s no doubt,” the sergeant came right back, “that’s why she tossed you back in the pond!”

The others roared with laughter.

Red-faced, Noia tightened the strap she’d known was loose, but hadn’t bothered to fix.

The changing of the guard was not a quick process. They stopped at intervals and men left and men joined them, then they marched again. By the second time, Noia knew the litany she was supposed to say to the guard she was to replace. She relaxed, glad of the respite.

Finally it was her turn. She said the words without expression. To her surprise, the guard waved at the sergeant. “A word!”

The two talked in low tones for a few moments, then the sergeant turned to the last man in the file. “Corporal, continue the relief.”

The corporal stomped a salute, moved to the front of the column and marched them into the night, leaving Noia, the sergeant and the guard by themselves.

“The sergeant tells me that the count told you off for this spot, himself.”

“Yes,” she told him.

“Yes, Captain!” the man snapped.

“It is dark, Captain,” Noia replied. “I failed to see the flash on your leathers.”

“Don’t be impertinent! Do you know what sort of ship this is?”

Noia smiled, knowing the answer. Men like Count Echanistra and her father knew so many things! And she knew so few! But this...

“A smuggler, Captain.”

“And your duty?”

“I’m to stand here at the head of the dock.”

“Well, there are additional special instructions. You will, if you hear or see anything unusual, particularly if you even think they might be making ready for sea, beat on the alarm gong.”

“The gong, Captain?” Noia inquired.

“Did you see the sign with the dock number as you marched up?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“There is a sledge hammer next to it. Take the hammer and hit the sign. The wood facing will break, and the gong will sound. Keep ringing the gong until I tell you to stop.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“You are a better choice than Earlene, that I agree. He isn’t known to these men, but he’s a little slow. You don’t appear slow, soldier. Do you understand that this is the sort of night that smugglers sail?”

“Yes, Captain. I would not be comfortable taking out a ship from Echanistra with a contrary wind, in the dead of night, in a fog, and against the tide.”

The captain sniffed. “That may be. Do you understand that when I return with the relief and that ship isn’t here, I’ll kill you? This is six moons of work, soldier! I will catch these smugglers this time!”

“Captain, I do my duty!”

The captain spat on the ground, and then turned and marched off, followed by the sergeant, who’d hadn’t said a word.

Noia watched them go. Would the captain turn back and check?

In truth, in his shoes, she would. She lifted her head and sniffed the wind. No, it wasn’t high tide yet; the water still had another palm width to run. Like as not, the wind would drop right before. She took the spot she’d seen the soldier at and stood stolidly.

She never knew if he came to check; if so, she never saw him. The wind stopped and from the sounds of the waves, the tide was slack.

She undid the catches and let the leathers slide to the ground. Then she went to the small ship and up the gangway. She saw men to either side, as she reached the deck, staring at her hard.

A dark shape moved in front of her. “Baytown,” Noia said evenly, pitching her voice low and making sure it didn’t crack.

“Can you haul the mainsail?”

“Yes.”

“Can you shoot that rifle? Those pistols?”

“Yes.”

“Turn to the port main halyard, and when the mainsail is up, then the aft port sheet. Lend a hand.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

The man didn’t correct her, and Noia went to where the rope would be. Two men were already there and she joined them.

“Softly now,” a voice said quietly in the night. “The guard’s gone, but let’s get this up quietly and get out of this place!”

A moment later she was tugging, helping lift the main sail into place, then a quick run down the deck with the others to pull the sail into place and set it, to get the best of what little wind there was.

For the next several palm widths, it was nerve-wracking. She stayed at her post, hauling away or slacking the ropes. She couldn’t see anything; she heard nothing but the commands given to her.

She was bone-tired when it began to get light. Still, it was clear they were in a fog bank. To Noia’s surprise the ship just continued to head further north, with a touch of westing. Finally, halfway to High Sun the fog lifted a bit, revealing them alone on an empty sea.

She was half asleep, leaning against the rail when she sensed someone next to her. He was a dark, fox-faced man. She compared his profile with what she remembered from the night. She let the captain be the one who broke the silence.

“No deluge of questions. You did as well on a rope as any of us could. Can you really use the rifle?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“The pistols?”

“Well enough, Captain.”

“Pretty amazing, eh? One moment in Echanistra, the next in the deep ocean?”

“Captain, the fog has lifted a bit, but the visibility isn’t a mile. I could put a finger on where we are on a map. We’re not in the deep ocean.”

“And you aren’t afraid? There are more narrows ahead.”

“No, I’m not afraid.” She looked him in the eye. “Captain, a question?”

“If you think I’ll tell you how I do this, you’re wrong.”

“No, sir. North Port, sir. Are you familiar with the harbor there?”

“I’m familiar with every harbor from Echanistra to South March.”

“Could you sail like this from North Port?”

The captain laughed. “Do you understand that there is just one narrows at North Port? There are three behind us and two still in front of us, hear? We won’t truly be in the open ocean until near dawn, tomorrow.”

Noia subsided and the captain grinned. “Think you have it figured, do you?”

“No, sir. It’s enough to know it can be done.”

He laughed and slapped his thigh. “All of the damned customs agents know the same thing! It’s impossible! Yet, here we are. Eh? You figure it out!”

She nodded. For a moment he looked at her. Noia wished she could ask what he saw. Evidently, not the right things.

“In half a moon, we’ll be stopping near North Port,” he told her. “Will that be a problem?”

“It is nothing to me,” she told him. Then Noia wondered–just how fast had the news traveled? The count had his spies, she knew. But she doubted if the news was widely abroad yet.

“Captain,” she said softly. He looked at her.

“Who is the Count of North Port?”

“Treygon, of course,” came the immediate reply.

She smiled. “His son poisoned him six days gone. Alcibydos is count now.”

The captain jerked around and stared at her hard as she went on, “He intends to reestablish road tolls; probably he will increase tariffs on ships putting in to trade as well.”

“You’re certain of this?” the captain demanded.

Noia inclined her head slightly. “Do you think Count Echanistra is sending me to Baytown to see if this king is like his father?”

The captain looked torn between glee and laughter. After a few heartbeats he said with quiet malevolence, “You understand that I would be greatly upset to find out this isn’t true?”

“Do you understand that you told me first where you would stop, before I volunteered that which you would have learned almost at once, once you were there?”

The captain bobbed his head. That was true enough. “Has Echanistra ever treated you unfairly?” Noia asked the smuggler captain.

“He has treated me fairly, aye. I’ve also spent a week in his dungeons; there was nothing fair about that.”

“I was supposed to call out for the watch last night if you showed signs of casting off.”

The captain was looking much paler than seasoned sailors should in calm waters.

“Captain, I do not know of your arrangement with Count Echanistra; I do know that we are here and a watch captain is standing around an empty pier, cursing my name.”

“And living like this,” the man said, his voice filled with despair. “Never knowing if I’m to be...”

“Captain!” Noia couldn’t help the whip crack in her voice. He looked at her, registering that single word, with so much freight attached.

“Captain,” Noia went on, trying to speak more calmly, “I live because of Count Echanistra. So do you. Have you ever heard of him treating someone falsely?”

“No. But we are who we are.”

Noia laughed. “And he doesn’t know this? I told you where I’m going! Captain, do as you are told and one day you will sit with your children laughing about the perils you faced in defense of the count and our king.”

“People like me get ground to flour in the wars of such as those.”

“Not any more. There is something new on the eastern horizon.”

“The High King?”

“The High King, aye,” Noia agreed.

What had Count Echanistra said? That those who carried messages were at the most risk? Was she standing before such a man? Her fingers dipped into her waistband and pulled out the gold coin.

It was whimsy, pure whimsy. She grabbed the captain’s hand and laid the coin in it. “Have you ever seen the like, Captain?”

Without a word, he flipped it over. That’s when he paled, whiter than the snow.

“Of course not!”

“Captain, I’ve seen gold Kalvans before! This is obviously a bad copy.” The gold disk vanished back into her waistband.

The captain put out a hand, holding onto the railing, his face pale.

“Captain, I would ask a favor of you. If, in your journeys, should you hear of a man named Solon in Harphax City, could you send word to him that Noius of North Port, Echanistra and Baytown is coming to see him?”

His face was paler than fresh mountain snow.

“Captain!” Again she used the whip crack of her voice to get his attention. He shook his head, as if bemused, then looked at her.

“I know for myself that my ambition is a terrible task master. If I’d given vows of obedience to another, that would make my own ambitions much more difficult. If I was forced to take a second or third such vow... I think I would start looking for a way to make my life simpler.”

“And you are simpler?”

“For you, yes.”

He stared at her and she knew his fear.

“Yes, I’m not the most handsome face you’ve ever seen. Nobles are beautiful and handsome; they are rich young men and women who are cute and delightful. I’m none of those. Trust me or not. If you trust me, one day I’ll grant your fondest wish.”

He barked bitter laughter. “My fondest wish is to go to a place where no one knows me and assume the role of an honest merchant, and carry out that role until the day I die.”

She waved towards the land. “Do you understand that the new Count of North Port is a plotter? That he murdered his father? Suborned his brothers? That, for the foreseeable future, we will all be engaged in this battle? If you are true and loyal, you will be rewarded.”

“On your word?” he sniffed.

“You have done nothing for me, but convey me south. I will go ashore as you command and defend you and this ship, as will those others with us. What else would you have me do?”

“Your word?”

“Of course I give you my word. I will give you my deeds as well. Pay attention! If you should be unfaithful...”

“I understand. You are no different than the rest. Promises, always promises. Tomorrow, always tomorrow. Never today.”

“And all I can say is trust me or not.”

“It’s not like I have a choice.”

“We always have a choice,” Noia told him. “Whether or not we choose wisely is something else.”


	3. Preparing to Depart

I

Not that night, but several nights later, the ship Noia was aboard put into a small bight in the northern horn of land that protected North Port’s harbor. Noia was one of those detailed as guards and she stood with her rifle ready on a sandy beach, while their captain dealt with the locals.

She kept her eyes on the ground, mostly, because she knew some of the men who’d come to deal with the captain.

They rowed back out to the ship, and moments later were headed further south.

Noia had the morning watch, and she was lazing next to the sheet she’s been assigned, ready for a command, when the captain came up to her. “It is as you said. The count is dead.”

“Long live the count!” Noia replied bitterly.

“There is already trouble. The new count has tried to claim tolls on the roads. He killed the guards of a caravan and forced them to submit. He confiscated their goods for resisting.”

“That was really stupid. No caravan would willingly go to North Port now. Even captains of the coast-wise traders would shun the county.”

The captain bobbed his head. “I’m told the Old East Road is already very busy. I’m also told that the new count is going to style himself a duke and claim everything south of his county to the Great Northern River and east to the Great Mountains.”

Six hundred years ago an ancestor of the current King of Zarthan had slid his sword into the belly of the last noble to call himself a duke. There had been a lot of time since then–laws, proclamations and the like, where making such a claim was death for anyone making such a proclamation.

Her brother had just arrogated a dozen unattached baronies to himself, as well as lands currently controlled by the Northern Ruthani. None of those were very likely to agree to his usurpation!

The Kingdom of Zarthan was really a federation of cities, each of the larger ones ruled by a count and the smaller towns ruled by barons. Three counts had been granted a dispensation from the royal law that no land of a county could lie more than four day’s ride from the county seat.

The king was lord of Baytown and South Port. South Port was on the coast, but its harbor was poor. What wasn’t poor were the size of the king’s horse and cattle herds! They were vast, beyond imagination!

Then there was Count Mountain Wall. His lands ran from east of Echanistra to east of South Port. He ruled mountains that seemed to scrape the sky and his soldiers were the fiercest fighters in the Kingdom, no other count could match them. Over the centuries, many men had cast covetous eyes on Mountain Wall and the lands that made it up. The rivers there, it was said, ran with gold.

Once the leader of an army of ten thousand had stood at the foot of those mountains and dared Count Mountain Wall to come for him. A heartbeat later, a bullet took him in the heart. No man could begin to find where the shot had come from. The mountains towered thousands of feet into the air; it could have been fired from ten thousand places.

All of it, though, paled before the Central Valley. Her father had once told Noia that the counts of the Central Valley were smarter than all the others of the realm, because none of the counts of the Central Valley had ever desired to be king.

The Central Valley stretched from the red bluffs of the north, to the Misty Mountains of the south. In most places, a good rider could cross the county, east to west, in two days. North to south? A moon, usually.

Noia dragged herself back to where she was. “Actions, Captain, will speak for you from here on.”

He bobbed his head. “I understand.”

Noia found that she was getting rations as good as anyone else, and her duties were no more onerous than those of any other. It took nearly a moon quarter to reach Baytown. Most of her fellow crewmates shied away from her; well aware of the frequent conversations she had with the captain.

Once, on the voyage south, they’d put into a cove and two dozen men came pelting towards them from an ambush. A single volley of rifle fire had stopped them, and the men vanished into the night as quickly as they had appeared. Afterwards, the captain had called up each of the guards and asked them to fire their rifle into a wooden baulk. If your rifle fired, you got a silver coin for doing your duty; if you hadn’t reloaded, you were sent to the shrouds for “sail practice.”

Noia’s rifle had fired and she’d taken the coin as her due. Not reloading was something inexperienced men did after a battle. Smugglers couldn’t afford that sort of man on a landing party.

When she came down the boat ramp in Baytown she’d bowed to the captain, who bowed back. She left with a small smile on her face, wondering how he’d justify it to those others who would have thought they should have been first off the ship.

Shortly thereafter, she met the watch at the gate to the palace. “I am here to see King Freidal, I have a message for him from Count Echanistra.”

The senior guard laughed. “So many say. Understand one thing: if you weren’t invited, you die.”

“The king, please. I am Noius of Echanistra. I have a message from my count to the king.”

That name evidently didn’t mean anything to the man. A finger width later she was frog-marched through corridors and halls of the palace and eventually presented to a young woman, not much older than Noia, sitting in a large wooden chair behind a desk, reading some papers.

The woman put aside her reading and for a few heartbeats the two of them traded stares, then the woman turned to the guard lieutenant. “Well?”

“Mistress, she says she is Noius of Echanistra with a message from the count to the king.”

“And of course you believed him and allowed him to bring a rifle, pistols and a knife with him into the palace and into my presence.”

Noia frowned. The woman spoke with an accent that she didn’t recognize. She appeared unremarkable, but there was no doubt that the guard lieutenant was suddenly terrified.

Noia stood still as others removed her weapons. Only when a man reached into her waistband, using his fingers entirely too freely, did she lash out, knocking him to the ground.

Weapons came ready, even as she put her foot on the man’s throat. “I am a woman,” Noia told the woman seated in a large wooden chair. “I will not be searched by men.”

“You look like a man,” the woman said mildly.

“Looks can be deceiving.”

The woman waved. “You may all leave us now.”

The man in charge simply bowed. “As you command, so shall it be on your own head.”

“Yeah, right!” the woman told him sarcastically. “Go!”

Noia wasn’t sure if they were actually alone, but it looked that way.

“What’s in the waistband?” the woman asked.

“A gold coin.”

“A gold Kalvan? A pointy axe on both sides?”

Noia froze in shock, and the other waved. “Come, a simple yes or no will say it all.”

Noia closed her eyes. “Yes.”

The woman laughed. “There is no penalty in the King’s Court for telling the truth–just for lying. Relax. Unless I miss my guess your name is really Noia and you’re from North Port, not Echanistra.”

“Yes.”

“I have no desire to make an enemy of you, do you understand that?”

“Understand what?” Noia asked.

“That I will most carefully refrain from saying you look the part you play.

“Lady Noia, are you ready to face your king?”

“Of course!” She didn’t even hesitate for an instant for that answer.

Still, King Freidal’s appearance a heartbeat later was a surprise. She’d seen him several times when both of them were younger.

“Lady Noia,” the King of Zarthan began.

“Sire!”

He bobbed his head in recognition. “Aye. I’m sorry about your father, Lady Noia, sorrier still about all of your brothers, one in particular.”

“Have you heard that my brother has declared himself the Duke of North Port?”

“Yes. Not only is he foolish and impatient, he’s very ambitious. To my surprise, the unaligned baronies he has claimed have all agreed to his rule, all but the one belonging to General Denethon. They don’t dare, not quite yet, to raise up another and call him a baron, to supplant Denethon.

“Count Echanistra told me of his wishes for you. He is correct. Are you willing to go east?”

“Yes, sire.”

“I wish I could support you now, I really do. A year...I can do it in another year. Particularly if you acquit yourself well.”

“She’s as old as I was, when you made me queen,” the other woman said.

Noia didn’t let her shock show. She’d bandied words with the Queen of Zarthan? How did she know of the coins of the High King?

The woman saw Noia’s expression and laughed. “She didn’t recognize me! Husband mine, I told you that plainness has its virtues!”

“General Denethon made the same point when he spoke of his first meeting with Lord Tuck, when he mistook Brigadier Verkan for the man who’d actually cut his way through the realm of the God-King. The Duke of Mexico is as plain a man as there is, at least in appearance. It’s what’s in his mind and heart that makes him great.”

King Freidal turned back to Noia. “It will take me a day or so to arrange for your transportation east. I doubt if your brother is much of a factor here in Baytown–at least not yet. But there is no reason to take chances.”

“Sire, my brother prepared his coup well. He has money, he has many new soldiers, all mercenaries. The poison he used on my father was the same sort as Styphon used on yours.”

The king stared at her silently for a long moment. “It is painful in the extreme to know that some of my subjects are disloyal and plotting my downfall.”

Queen Elspeth nodded. “Some of them close enough to reach out and touch. Lieutenant Weygan told me there was a boy who said he was a messenger who wanted to see the king. I told him bring the person to me. He let her into my presence armed with a rifle, two pistols and a knife.”

The king’s face turned an angry red. “Weygan is a nephew of General Khoogra.”

“And the eldest son of one of Count South March’s barons as well. I might add, the baron hosted one of Styphon’s fireseed mills and a rifle foundry,” Queen Elspeth told her husband.

He had regained his color and smiled at his wife. “You know more about my nobles than I, Elspeth.”

“Only a few of your nobles want your head on a pike. Rather more of them would like to see mine on one. Nothing concentrates your attention more than having people trying to kill you.”

Noia bobbed her head. “Lady Queen, I learned very fast on the day my father died how true your words are.”

“And is that when you got that coin?” the queen asked gently.

Noia pulled it from her waistband. “I suppose it’s treason to have this.”

Queen Elspeth laughed lightly. “I have its mate, and quite a few more, in a chest in my sleeping chamber.”

“There are some,” the king told Noia, “who believe I’ve become too close to the High King and that between his words and the words of my lady wife, my mind is befuddled and beclouded. They are the ones befuddled and beclouded, Lady Noia. If I could, I’d invite the High King to move in across the square.

“It is fear of the High King alone that keeps the God-King from coming north against us. I would hope we can defeat them, but it will be a battle that consumes us, and will echo for years, perhaps decades, afterwards.”

“Which is why what you will be doing is critical,” Elspeth told Noia. “The God-King is building ships to bring his soldiers and their supplies north. The High King has ships that can stop them. There is no way, do you understand, for him to sail those ships to our aid? What we have to do is learn how to build such ships ourselves. And then we need sailors to man them and fight them.

“Echanistra said you know as much about the High King’s navy as he did or I do. He said you told him you have spies, but he didn’t mention you have one of the High King’s coins. That, Lady Noia, is a very good thing, because some secrets should be told as few times as possible.

“The man who gave it to me helped me to escape from North Port. I might have made it on my own, but it would have been much harder.”

“There is no better test of loyalty,” Freidal told her, “than when someone helps you at great risk to themselves and no prospect of any significant reward in the near future. Cherish such bonds, Lady Noia, they are worth more than any gold coin.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Now, my lady wife will see to it that you have a room, some clothes and something to eat. Tomorrow, the three of us will have breakfast together, overlooking the harbor. My lady wife is fond of the view.”

“The few days a year there is a view,” the queen said with a laugh.

Queen Elspeth was apologetic, later, in the room that had been given to Noia. “I wish you could come for dinner, but too many know of your brother’s treason. It would be a direct slap in his face, which would be a good thing, but it would also tell him where you are, not to mention that you have many friends in high places. None of that is good; better to let the bastard worry. We will send up something from the kitchen in private. I assure you that they will not bring you kitchen leavings!”

“It’s okay, highness.”

Elspeth shook her head. “Two years ago I wasn’t any more noble than one of my husband’s horses. I was doing everything I could to kill him and his soldiers. In truth, it wasn’t much, although I do have a way with words.”

The queen paused. “I’ll see what we can find for you for clothes.”

“I am rather hard to fit,” Noia said, her voice bitter.

“You are plain, girl. So am I. Probably you have small breasts or I could tell, wrapped or not. I had small breasts, up until I was pregnant. Then they ballooned. I don’t recommend that, though, unless it’s your desire.

“I’m not as plain as you, but Freidal sees my mind, not my face. You’ve been hounded, chased by men who would kill you. For days and days, I suspect.”

Noia nodded.

“So have I. I had to kill one pursuer with a knife. It was easy, very easy, because he was looking at me, dropping his loincloth as he stared. I cut his balls off, do you understand?”

Noia hadn’t heard many tales of the queen. Evidently she hadn’t had an easy life.

“So, you relax. Eat. I imagine you’d like a bath?”

“Oh, please, yes!” Noia exclaimed. “Where I’ve been a dirty face was necessary. To be clean again!” she sighed expressively.

Noia reveled in the hot bath, and the food that was better than anything her father’s cook could turn out. The room had no windows, and after eating she felt like walking. There was a soldier standing watch next to her door. She grinned at him.

“Is this your watch post or am I?”

“You, my lady.”

“Could you lead me some place outside, someplace with a view?”

“Of course, my lady.”

He walked next to her through the corridors of the palace, through a heavy wooden door then up several flights of steps. Then they were outside.

Noia took a deep breath, savoring the sea air. She looked up and could see stars washing across the sky. It was chill, but not unbearable. She walked a few feet and looked out over Baytown, spread at the palace’s feet. She’d much rather have looked at the ocean, but it was visible only by the absence of anything to look at in the distance.

She was aware of her guard standing a few feet away, stolid, but solid. So much had happened! So much was yet to happen! She wished she’d had a chance for one last hug from her father. She stood there silently cursing her brother for preventing her from a last chance to say goodbye to her father.

There was a rustle of sound, and the queen, followed by two more guards appeared. The queen moved next to Noia and looked out at the town.

“I still have trouble believing I’m here and this is real,” she told Noia.

“I’m not sure I understand, your highness.”

The queen said something under her breath that Noia didn’t understand.

“I’ve founded a new Royal Order,” the queen told her. “To belong you have to be a woman who has had to run for her life for days and days. All such women are privileged to use each other’s first names when speaking to each other.”

It was the easiest thing. “First names, highness?”

“Elspeth, woman. Elspeth. Call me Elspeth. Where I’m from the first name is your personal name, your last name was that of your father’s family. Having to run for your life is no picnic, you know what I mean?”

“Yes, highness.”

Elspeth turned and took Noia’s arm and gently shook it. “If you aren’t smart enough to learn my name, you’re not nearly smart enough for this mission.”

Noia blanched. “Yes, Elspeth.”

“That’s more like it!

“Tomorrow, you will be off to meet another member of our sisterhood, Lady Becky of Outpost. She, like me, is someone you will not understand very well.”

“I understand that you are my queen,” Noia told her.

“I am an uncommon commoner,” Elspeth told her. “You have no idea of how common. In my land, there were no nobles. There were a few places that still had people with noble titles, but mostly there were honorary with no meaning beyond that.”

Noia swallowed, trying to imagine such a place. “Who rules?”

“Well, they would surely tell you the best of us governed. Even my husband admits that the way we choose a new ruler of Zarthan or one of its counties is whimsical. You never know if the new ruler will be good, bad or indifferent. Once you have him, or, very rarely, her, you’re stuck with them until they die. Killing such a person has all sorts of unpleasant repercussions and is done rarely, if at all.”

“That is how it’s always been done. How do your people do it?”

“Do you understand that in my land, I was counted a child? That I would now be permitted a few privileges, but not many? You have to be twenty-one to vote, to select our rulers. Those who wish to hold an office stand up and speak to the people, then we vote for the one we think will do the best. Whoever has the most support wins.”

“And this is better?”

“Honestly, we have our thieves and poltroons, our incompetents and the malignant. But you see, the job isn’t for life. The man who rules us must face election every four years. Our highest ruler can only be elected twice.”

“And this works?”

“Better than anything else, anyway. In order to win, more than half the people have to think you’ll do a good job.”

She paused and touched Noia’s sleeve. “You have already learned about enemies, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Have you heard of Lord Tuck, the Duke of Mexico?”

“Of course.”

“I was one of those who accompanied him to this place. Someone brought us here. Do you understand? Someone not our friends?”

Noia nodded, her eyes wide.

“Lord Tuck, William Tucker, call him what you will, told me once that the people who brought us here had to work in secret, and that telling others of their existence would have to violate their most important laws. They would try to kill us.”

Noia was silent; the queen was silent. The moment stretched on and on.

“I’m not sure why you’re telling me this,” Noia said with dignity.

“I don’t tell many; my sisters in flight, at least. You know we have enemies, Noia. Those enemies wish us dead. They conspire, most of them, in the dark night, and strike in hidden ways. Poison, the blade in the back, the shot in a crowd.

“Lord Tuck fought my husband using my husband’s strengths against him. Tuck killed thousands of Zarthan’s finest soldiers, and lost only a handful of men in doing so. Then he went south and did the same thing to the God-King’s soldiers. All men know the results of those battles!”

Noia could only nod. Everyone had heard those stories. Her father had shaken his head and said they had to be exaggerations, but he had no idea what they could be, because the facts were that Lord Tuck had taken a thousand men into the lands of the God-King and had captured two of their major towns, dozens of smaller ones–and destroyed nearly eighty thousand soldiers of the God-King.

And then, soldiers loyal to Tuck, struck in the heart of the God-King’s lands, killing the God-King, his son and two grandsons in one fell stroke.

“Noia, let me be clear why I’m telling you this. Tuck believes, as do I, as does Lady Judy, that the men who brought us here are plotting against us. They are the men plotting against the Zarthan, against the High King’s realm.”

“You think they are the same?” Noia asked, surprised.

“We think they overlap, anyway. You have to know about the plots, Noia. I have to know about you as well, because the Kingdom of Zarthan will stand or fall depending on how well you do your task.”

“I will do it to the best of my abilities!” Noia told her.

The queen nodded and looked around. Her two guards and Noia’s one were some distance off, standing watching them.

“You have two choices, and I need to know your choice now. We can send you east as a young woman of the court, to Count Errock’s college at Outpost. My sister, Lady Becky, runs that. They will, in turn, send you on further east. Except that all would know that a young woman of your age went east, and since not many young women go that way, the plotters would know who you were and would likely be able to trace you.

“If you go once again as a man, you would be one of the soldiers guarding a supply convoy to Outpost. When you went east from Outpost, you’d still be a young man, sent to the High King’s Academy for officers in Hostigos. No one would know where you were, and only a very, very few would know that someone important was traveling. That could make all the difference, between success and failure.”

“As a boy.”

“As a young man. For a while.”

“It’s always been for a while,” Noia told Elspeth. “Except the ‘while’ keeps getting longer and longer.”

The queen laughed. “Perhaps, but you are reminded of the truth every time you have to pee.”

Noia inclined her head, acknowledging that the most likely way she’d be discovered was at the jakes.

“A man,” Noia said resignedly, signaling her choice.

“I think of all my sisters, you would like Becky best,” Elspeth told her. “She is very pragmatic and of all of us, and has the highest reach.”

Noia was stunned. “Elspeth, you’re a queen! Lady Judy is a countess, married to a count in his own right!”

“Yes, but I got my rank by saying yes to Freidal’s proposal. I aspired to nothing. Lady Judy aspired to be a good soldier in order to win Tuck’s approval. In the process, she learned she really sought another’s approval. And then she discovered that she could command soldiers in battle as few can.

“Lady Becky aspires to teach others. Do you understand that Becky attended the lowest level of our schools? That she never graduated? Yet, now she heads the college at Outpost. Do you understand that what we were taught as children things that not even the wisest savant in Hostigos or Zarthan know?”

“The ships of the High King.”

“The ships, the steam pullers, the wires that talk, fireseed, mortars, rifles...it is a very long list, Noia.”

“You are like gods!” Noia whispered.

Elspeth giggled. “Oh, Noia, Noia! We aren’t gods! I was pregnant by rape. Now, I’d give an arm and a leg to become pregnant again and nothing works! At home the man you know as ‘Lord Tuck’ raised horses on a piece of land so small a serf would have needed two more like it to earn enough to pay his tithes! We are just people, people like you, Noia. It’s just that, as you know more than your grandfathers, so we know more than you. We aren’t gods, our only advantage is that we’ve had more time to learn things.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“And, like I said, it’s a secret that at least some of our enemies are willing to kill to keep.”

“I will keep my promises.”

“Good. Tomorrow, as soon as the sun shines on the hills and us, we’ll let the High King know you are coming. By the time you reach Outpost, arrangements will have been made. We talk to them in ways that are very, very secret.”

“I understand.”

“Get some sleep, as shall I. Tomorrow will be a busy day, at least for some of us. The day after, I’m afraid, you’ll be on the trail.”

“That is fine for me, Elspeth. I have a duty to the people of North Port; I will fulfill that duty to the best of my abilities.”

“Do you know why Lord Tuck, and, I suspect, the High King, go along with the current system of nobility, even if it isn’t what we are used to?”

Noia shook her head.

“Because of people like you, Noia, like Echanistra, like Freidal, like your father, like a good many other good men and women who are nobles. You care about Zarthan and about Zarthan’s people. I swear to you, that even though I was born far away from here, farther than the mind can imagine, I care about them too. Like all those others I named, I’m willing to risk death to protect them.”

The queen leaned close and kissed Noia’s cheek, and started to walk away.

Noia’s guard separated himself from the others and placed himself in the queen’s path. He went to his knees, holding his hands clasped above his bowed head. “Queen, hear my petition!”

One of the other guards, a sergeant, had a sword out, ready to take a slash at the man on his knees. “What, guard sergeant?” the queen said.

“The man is a troublemaker.”

Without a word, Elspeth moved, a dagger appearing in her hand, suddenly pressing against the guard sergeant’s throat. “And I told you that our guest was to be kept safe, my husband’s honor depending on it!”

The man on his knees spoke up. “Highness, I am a troublemaker. But I’ve never done less than my duty! Never! I swear! Hear my petition, my Queen!”

The queen moved the dagger a fraction of an inch upwards, forcing the guard sergeant to look her in the eye. “Which is it, sergeant? Troublemaker or a man who does his duty?”

“Both, my Queen. He doesn’t like sergeants much and lieutenants even less! He doesn’t care for nobles and captain-generals at all. But, there is more to doing your duty than merely killing the enemies of Zarthan.”

Elspeth turned to the man at her feet. “Am I safe with you?”

“Yes, my lady!”

“And you’ve killed enemies of the king? Of Zarthan?”

“Yes, my lady!”

Elspeth looked at her guard sergeant. “Withdraw, please.”

“My lady!” the sergeant looked distressed. “The man is a troublemaker!” he repeated.

Elspeth laughed out loud. “Are you a brave man, sergeant?”

“As brave as any man, my Queen!”

“Then I charge you with this: ask the king if I was a troublemaker when I served as Count Errock’s and the High King’s Voice. Do that before the next time I see you. You are dismissed.”

The man, pale as a sheet, marched stiffly away.

Elspeth turned to the man on his knees. “Am I safe with you?” she repeated.

“I’d give my life in your service, my Queen.”

“And the lady who stands next to me? What about her?”

“Her, too. Whoever I was told to protect, I would, to my last breath.”

“And yet, you’re a troublemaker.”

The man sighed and nodded. “My tongue, my Queen. When a sergeant or an officer tells me to do something stupid, I object.”

“You understand, of course, that it’s not you who gets to judge?”

The man shrugged. “I only get upset when they are really stupid and don’t listen.”

“What is your petition, soldier?”

The man nodded. “Lady Queen, this woman–you’re going to send her far away?”

“That, soldier, is a secret of the realm.”

“My Queen, I swear to you, I will give my life to keep this person safe! She should have an escort when she goes into foreign lands!”

“And do you know who this person is? Knowing that if I find out you’re lying, you’ll be dead as soon thereafter as I can arrange?”

“No, my Queen. But she is someone special. I can see it in her face, her eyes. I swear, on my sacred honor.”

“Soldier, at a certain point, continuing to swear starts to sound like a lie.”

“It is not.”

“Your name?”

“Trilium, my Queen. From South March, originally.”

Elspeth turned to Noia, who’d been close enough to hear everything. “Lady sister, what say you? A man has offered himself into your service.”

Noia looked at the man, who looked back at her with pleading in his eyes.

Noia turned to the queen. “You understand that my brothers all thought I was a troublemaker? A no-account troublemaker?”

“As I told the sergeant, my husband once held me in even less regard than ‘troublemaker.’”

“If he really is a troublemaker, perhaps I could learn from an expert,” Noia told Elspeth.

The queen roared with laughter, slapping her thigh. “Lady sister, I will have to tell that one to my husband! I will make further inquiries, but he is yours.”

The queen departed, with her remaining guard and Noia followed hers back to her quarters. When they arrived, he took his post next to her door once again.

“Tell me, soldier,” Noia asked him, “what sort of trouble do you cause?”

“Mostly, I tell someone they are stupid.”

“Politely?”

“Sergeants and officers do not think you polite when you disagree with them, no matter what words you use. After a time, I stopped bothering with politeness.”

“Have you ever done something different than what you were ordered?”

The man shook his head. “Never.”

“Understand, soldier, that I told a count to his face that I thought he was laughable, when he ordered me to do something. He sent me to my room and told me to stay there. As you can see, I neither listened or obeyed.”

“Such things aren’t something I could do,” he told her. “Object, yes. They are upset at objections. To do something different than what I’m told...”

Would be death for a common soldier. “While I didn’t hear the words, while I haven’t heard it for a fact, I’m certain that a count has ordered my death. You would stand between me and that death.”

“To kill you, my lady, they would have to pass through me. It would not be all that easy.”

“We both sleep; they favor attacking you when you’re not looking for it. They favor poison, too.

“Moreover, I am a lady tonight, and I will probably stay a lady tomorrow morning. After that I will pretend to be a man. You will have to adapt to that.”

“It is common in the army, in regular units, to place a new soldier with an older one, for training. I believe that would work.”

Noia bowed her head. “And the sea? Have you ever been to sea?”

“Twice, my lady. The sea, my lady, is even worse than sergeants.”

“Well, you’d better come to grips with that, if you expect to stay with me.”

“I will, my lady. I swear it!”

“Tell me the truth: why do you want to leave this place?”

“Here, lady, I am known to all. Sergeants and corporals slap me on my first day, just to show me that they know who I am, when I have done nothing to offend them. If any of them has a particularly unpleasant task to perform, they think of me first. Twice, officers have ordered me to take part in attacks that failed badly. I survived by the will of the gods, not the will of those officers.”

“Well, do your duty. If you find you disagree with me, be prepared for an argument!”

She closed her door and sat down on the bed. Well, at least the full feeling from dinner was gone! She laid down on the bed and dragged a blanket up to her neck, heedless of how she was dressed.

II

Judy Bondi, once an eighth grade student in suburban Phoenix, now Countess of Tecpan, smiled when her husband joined her on the veranda of their palace for breakfast. She was tall, very tall, taller than most men, including her husband. Where he was blonde and blue-eyed, with pale skin that seemed to burn after a finger width in the sun, she was darker-skinned, with black hair and brown eyes.

Gamelin, Count of the Trygath, nodded in turn, and then grinned like a little boy. “A wonderful morning to be out and about, Lady wife!”

Judy laughed. “You keep trying!” She paused long enough for him to grin, before she went on. “But I’m not ever going to reply ‘Lord husband’ to that greeting.”

He laughed. “I am a more senior count than you! You’re the newest count in the realm!”

“And the youngest without a regent,” she reminded him. She saw in his eyes the truth of that–that it wasn’t the truth.

Gamelin realized his eyes had said too much. “Judy, I swear, it’s in name only! I will never, ever, exercise that which I was told was my right.”

Judy sniffed, half in anger, half in derision. “And here I thought the High King was so clever! He made you Count of the Trygath even though your father not only lives, but still rules there. It was a sham?”

“No, of course not! You rule! Sure, the High King gave me leave to overrule you if I thought you were wrong. Judy, you haven’t been wrong. Not once. Not ever.”

“Don’t tell me the other counts are happy with the things I’ve done!” she snapped. “Not at the way I’ve organized Tecpan.”

He shrugged. “The better counts and barons, and all of the dukes, have something similar. You gave the Council of Tecpan more authority than they would is all. A century ago, none of their councils would have had much beyond advisory duties. Times change, Judy! And you’re one of the main reasons for that lately!”

“What else don’t I know?”

He grinned. “One small, little thing. The High King took great delight in suggesting it, then explaining it. It’s about our heirs.”

“What about them?”

“Everyone, including you, assumes that our oldest son gets the Trygath and our oldest daughter gets Tecpan. The words are ‘first suitable heir’ for each county. Way, way down, buried in the middle of something else, is the statement that a suitable heir is defined as one who doesn’t already hold a county, or if none of our heirs was currently suitable, the first suitable heir after that.”

Judy frowned. “I read that. I thought it means just what it says.”

“It does...nowhere in the oaths we signed does it specify the gender of an heir. So, in theory, if our first two children were of the same sex, we could assign them counties, without regard to their sex. And if there is only one, they would be able to act as regent until the birth of a suitable heir of theirs, and install him or her in the other county, and a second in whichever county still needed an heir.

“And of course, suitable means if we have a child who isn’t suitable, we can skip them.”

“I suppose that happens,” Judy said, resignedly.

“It does. My brothers...we have the same father, the same mother, the same upbringing, frequently we even had the same teachers. I didn’t think they were that smart but the fact that they’re still alive says maybe they have finally learned reason.”

“And your sister?”

Gamelin laughed hard. “I got a letter not so long ago from my brother-in-law, asking if I could find a place for him in the army–far from combat. My sister has been pestering him to enlist, so that he might be made a count, too.”

“But he wants a posting away from combat?”

“An arrant coward,” Gamelin said, nodding in agreement. “I mentioned the number of the God-King’s soldiers that stand south of us and suggested that he might have better luck applying to the High King for a posting.”

“Kalvan isn’t going to like that!” Judy said, a little gleefully.

Gamelin looked around and lowered his voice. “Judy, with me you can call the High King whatever you will, I understand that you, Tuck and your friends share a degree of familiarity with him that I don’t. But please, he’s the High King! Even in private you should acknowledge it. It’s a singular achievement!”

This wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion. “I promise to be more careful. You understand that growing up, we didn’t have such; a few pretenders we laughed at. Foreigners who were the heirs of nobility, but whose days had long been in eclipse.”

“And here we do; here is where you are, Judy. It will just grate on the ears of our people, even the Mexicotál. They are used to bowing and scraping even more than we in the Great Kingdoms were.”

“I will do better,” she repeated. “And what is on the schedule?”

“Duke Tuck and Lady Tanda will be back within a moon, they are currently at Outpost, talking with Count Errock. When they reach Xipototec, they’ll rest a few days, and then Duke Tuck will come here to visit us with news from Baytown and Outpost.”

A signal sergeant appeared and handed Judy a sheet of paper. “Thank you,” she told the man. “Acknowledge and say the count will comply.”

“Yes, my lady,” the sergeant saluted and turned away.

Judy handed the message to Gamelin. “I’ll be greeting Tuck and Tanda, you’ll be elsewhere, Gamelin.”

He read it and pursed his lips. “I could send a message back to the Grand Marshal in Zimapan and tell him I’d like to come sooner, rather than later.”

“Dear Gamelin, it’s a moon to Zimapan and a moon back. You’ll be there for a couple of moon quarters. And then, there’s the little matter of Zacateca.”

Zacateca had revolted during the war, but it had done so on its own and stood now, alone. The new leaders had said that they didn’t want to trade one overlord for another. To put it mildly, neither she nor her husband were welcome there. Which meant the trip to Zimapan was half again as far as it should have been.

Still, the High King had decreed that he would treat with Zacateca as he would any other independent princedom. He sold them fireseed and fireseed weapons and, quietly, sergeants of the High King trained soldiers for the city.

“Zacateca is going to be utterly crushed when the God-King comes back north,” Gamelin said positively. “Every last man, woman and child in that city will climb the pyramid.”

“Do you remember what Tuck kept saying?” Judy asked him.

“He kept saying a lot of things.”

“That one day all the fools would be dead, and then things would get interesting.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Gamelin said evenly.

“If I was sent to govern Zacateca for the God-King, after my army beat theirs in the field, the first thing I’d do would be to announce a general amnesty and then recruit survivors of the Zacatecan army into my forces. I might even declare a holiday from sacrifices for a while.”

Gamelin laughed at her. “Judy! That’s not how they behave! They kill everyone who revolts!”

“And if they do that, they will have an empty town. They can march tens of thousands of new inhabitants north from the Heartland, but every last one of those new inhabitants will know what happened to the last batch. I’m not sure they would be all that loyal to the God-King.

“Once, Tuck told me a story he heard when he was in the army. Some men who were serving in the militia of a tyrant were sitting in the woods, late for their call-up. One of them looked at his fellows and asked, ‘What is the penalty for being late? Death! What is the penalty for rebelling? Death! Brothers, we are late!’”

“They have lots of soldiers,” Gamelin said reasonably, trying to ignore the barb of her comment.

“Yes and, in truth, I’m all in favor of those soldiers having to stick close to Zacateca to keep it from rising. If they rise again, I swear, I’ll send Legios there with the Heavy Weapons Company. The Zacatecan city fathers will learn that their high walls are meaningless.”

Gamelin stared at her, ignoring everything but the one name. “You like the man.” His voice sounded accusatory.

“And you’re jealous of the captain for no reason,” Judy told him. “Gamelin, the High King needs brave, aggressive soldiers down here to fight the God-King. That description fits Captain Legios to a ‘T.’”

Gamelin shook his head ruefully. “I can’t dare disagree with the thought of an ensign being raised above his station, can I? Not when two junior lieutenants that I know had the same thing happen to them.”

“And one of those lieutenants was very junior indeed,” Judy said with a smile, “and needed a lot higher lift to get where she is today.”

“Zimapan, eh?” Gamelin said with a sigh. “Well, let me tell Vosper and get a suitable escort organized.” He glanced at the mid-morning sun. “Tomorrow, I expect. First light.”

Judy yawned. “I’m feeling sleepy again.”

“Is that a hint you’d like me to wake you up once more?”

“That’s what it is. And then I will keep you from falling asleep.”

Gamelin rose quickly. “I’ll get Vosper moving, expect me in a finger width!”

“Better hurry, husband! I might fall asleep!”

III

Captain Legios, commanding, the Heavy Weapons Company of the First Southern Mounted Regiment, was talking with the two Mortar brothers about their coming patrol when Short Mortar nudged him and jerked his chin towards the palace.

Captain Legios glanced over his shoulder. The Duke of Mexico, Duke Tuck, and his wife, Tanda Havra, and a junior lieutenant were headed towards the three veteran officers.

Legios carefully let no expression show on his face. He wished the new lieutenant luck, but the new man was older than any of the three veterans. Moreover, Legios commanded, and he was the youngest of the trio. Worse, the two Mortar brothers were...odd. Between the three of them, most new officers didn’t work out well trying to adjust to their new situation.

Short Mortar was just that, a short, round man with a perpetual grin and a lively sense of humor. His brother, Big Mortar, stood head and shoulders taller than most men, and as round as his younger brother was, he was wider. Short Mortar had a pointy beard like the High King favored, Big favored a full, bushy style that could hide a nest of birds...eagles.

The duke and his party stopped a few feet away from the three officers and grinned. “You’ll be ready to march at dawn, Captain?” the duke said.

“Yes, sir!” Legios grinned. “Although I thought the plan was that we got to ride our horses out this time.”

The duke chuckled. “Careful about talking like that in front of Tanda, Captain! You know her preferred method of locomotion!”

The Mortar brothers were not easily impressed. Tanda Havra had picked up Big Mortar’s pack and matched the Heavy Weapons Company’s mounted progress that day–on foot, while they rode their horses. Still, though she hadn’t looked worse for the wear, she promptly returned the pack to its owner before sitting down to the evening meal.

Duke Tuck went on, “Captain Legios, this is Lieutenant Smyla of the Sixth Mounted, under Brigadier Markos. Lieutenant, Captain Legios was once junior aide to Brigadier Markos before moving over to mortars.”

The lieutenant saluted Legios. “Sir, my honor.”

Legios returned the salute, but his eyes were on Duke Tuck.

The duke’s wife spoke. “Lieutenant, few men impress me. Captain Legios did. I hope you are in good physical condition.”

“Your grace?” The lieutenant was obviously confused, which wasn’t an uncommon problem with officers new from the east who’d never served with a woman commanding them. Even then, few women were anything like Tanda Havra.

“I run, Lieutenant.”

The bare statement from Tanda Havra made the lieutenant frown. Obviously he was missing something.

Legios’ estimation of the man went up a notch. It was quite okay to be confused by Tanda Havra. If you understood Duke Tuck, why, you should be a general as well.

“I can see, Lieutenant, that doesn’t impress you,” Tuck said. “On the other hand, Tanda ran from Outpost to Mogdai in little more than a day, listened to me fight a battle, ran back to Outpost the next day and returned with troops to my relief. A hundred and fifty miles in three days. On foot, eh?”

The lieutenant nodded as if he understood. He didn’t, not really. Riding a horse half that distance in three days would be a noteworthy feat. Running? How could anyone do that?

Tanda Havra chuckled heartily. “What impresses me about Captain Legios’ ability to run, Lieutenant, is that I ran with a rifle, shot pouch, a little food and not much else. Captain Legios carries a wee bit more. A hundred and twenty pounds is the lightest pack in his company.”

Lieutenant Smyla grimaced. “I can march with that much on my back.”

“Run, Lieutenant,” the larger of the two lieutenants with Captain Legios said. “We run, if we have to.”

Lieutenant Smyla eyed the man. To say he was huge was a huge understatement.

Duke Tuck laughed as he saw Smyla eying the mortar lieutenant. “I’m told by one who was there, that when Captain Legios’ superior introduced mortars to the senior officers of the First Mounted after Three Hills, he told them, ‘Here is one of the High King’s secret weapons.’ Whereupon one of the colonels laughed and said with a thousand men like Big Mortar he would be in Baytown before winter.

“They weren’t headed for Baytown, but it turns out the First Mounted only needed one man like Big Mortar to beat the God-King’s army over and over again.”

The duke turned brisk. “Captain, Lieutenant Smyla is going to command a mortar section with the Sixth. Your former boss said, ‘Send him to Legios so he can learn his duty properly,’ so here he is. Treat him well, Captain. You have him for a moon.”

Duke Tuck saluted Legios and Legios promptly returned it. Then the duke and his wife left, while everyone’s eyes followed them.

Short Mortar laughed at the lieutenant’s expression. “Right now you’re telling yourself that’s some woman!”

Lieutenant Smyla blushed and looked away.

“Lieutenant, Tanda Havra means ‘Kills-From-Behind’ in the Ruthani tongue. On the night she met Lord Tuck she snuck up on a deer and slit its throat with her knife.”

Smyla blinked. He’d hunted, but he wasn’t nearly that good!

“Then she killed a Mexicotál soldier from behind with that same knife, knocked another into a fire and then charged Lord Tuck, not knowing who she was fighting in the dark. Sir, she came at the duke from in front. She didn’t know who he was, but when a private of Count Gamelin’s patrol called for her to hold in the High King’s name, she did.

“You may have heard this story before, Lieutenant.”

“I was born and raised in old Hostigos,” Lieutenant Smyla told the other officers. “Yes, I’ve heard the story before, although the version I heard had different names.”

Captain Legios waved at a corral, filled with hundreds of milling horses. “Before you despair about how likely it is you can carry what my troopers carry, consider that our preferred means of locomotion is the horse. Wagons, when we can get them.”

“Steam pullers are good, too,” Short Mortar interjected.

“And as soon as we have them here,” Legios said sarcastically, “I’ll expect to see them used to good purpose.”

Legios hated to do it, but he had his orders. “Lieutenant, tomorrow at dawn, we begin a patrol that will last three moon quarters. Can you be ready?”

“Of course, sir! A palm width and I’ll be ready!”

Big Mortar’s voice was a deep rumble. “What do you do for the Sixth, Lieutenant?”

“I’m the second in command for a remount post on the road between Outpost and South Port. We’ve been given four mortars and Brigadier Markos wants them to be fired, if they must be fired, so that they are of use.”

The shorter of the two lieutenants with Captain Legios laughed. “Well, in that case, you’ve come to the right place! With the exception of Duke Tuck’s mortarmen, no other unit has more experience with mortars than we do. Actually, the Duke’s mortarmen didn’t have as many shells as we did during the war; so we have more experience than they do. Still, even now, the duke’s men regularly win the marksmanship competitions. Because if they hadn’t learned to shoot straight, they’d all be dead.”

“It’s a topic of debate,” Captain Legios temporized.

“Lieutenant,” Short Mortar told Smyla, “if you wish to ride with us tomorrow, you’ll need to get your field gear ready and present yourself there,” he pointed to a cluster of tents, where there was already a bustle of activity. “You need to be there, Lieutenant, before dusk.”


	4. Meetings

I

The scout was breathless, riding a thoroughly lathered horse. Captain Legios, commanding the High King’s Heavy Weapons Company, took the man’s salute.

“Captain! There’s a carriage about two miles ahead, heading north. There are about three hundred of the God-King’s cavalry chasing them, a couple of miles or so further back.”

The man looked back south, where the dust clouds were clearly visible.

Legios didn’t hesitate, but instead swung to his newest lieutenant. “Lieutenant Smyla, go with Big and do what he tells you. Big, set up now, hasty defense, range of a mile. I want every man not involved with setting up ready to fire a rifle volley into the air.”

Big Mortar started barking orders, and the column of four hundred men exploded into action.

“We’re on our side of the treaty boundary, Captain,” Short told Legios.

“Meaning we could fire into them, I know. Still, I would like to avoid massacring a bunch of the God-King’s soldiers if I can. Short, I want you to command the riflemen, please.”

Short nodded, scanning south for himself. Then he turned and started barking more orders to get the men set and ready.

Before he went to join the riflemen, Short waved at the approaching dust clouds, the carriage now clearly visible. “I don’t like this, sir. It smells of a trap!”

“Why do you say that, Lieutenant?”

“That’s a noble’s carriage. Fine for the city and the like, but the odds are it’ll break before it gets here. There’s no way those soldiers could have chased it here.”

“Do you believe the carriage is more of a threat than the cavalry in pursuit?” Legios asked snidely.

“Of course not! But I’ll be curious to hear the story of those in the carriage, assuming they live long enough to tell it.”

The carriage was now a little more than a mile off, bumping down the road, the cavalry in pursuit seemed to have gained a bit; they’d be up in a less than a finger width.

“Action front, range a mile. I want a single rifle volley, fired high. Have the men reload at once. If we have to shoot again, shoot to kill.” Short saluted and ran to take his position.

Legios took a few more heartbeats to get set in his own mind. Slightly more than half his men were on the mortar teams. Still, a hundred and fifty rifles fired into the air would, hopefully, give the oncoming soldiers pause. They were, after all, invading the Kingdom of Hostigos, the Duchy of Mexico. The last time they did that, a million and a half of their fellows had died.

He walked his horse back slowly behind the lines of riflemen and turned back to face the oncoming soldiers.

The carriage was now a few hundred yards away. The thunder of hooves of the eight horses pulling it was loud, as well as the bangs and thumps as it hit rocks and bumps. 

Legios raised his arm. “On my signal, ready!”

Men lifted their rifles and aimed them skywards. “Fire!”

The volley was a single crash, as solid as an officer could wish. The carriage veered a little, heading now for their position, slightly off the road. Legios grimaced, hoping it wasn’t going to make him jump for safety. That wouldn’t look very soldierly!

He lifted his eyes to the oncoming soldiers. They hadn’t slowed; they hadn’t shown any reaction to the volley at all.

“Big, commence!” he called loudly.

Getting a line of sixty mortars to fire on time was much more difficult than getting a hundred and fifty riflemen to follow orders. Still, the fountains of dirt, the barking cracks and yellow flame centers, the towering gouts of dirt, while not together, were close enough to all at once to check the advance.

His riflemen had finished reloading and were now on one knee, aiming a level volley.

In the distance, not quite a mile, trumpets called and the headlong charge stopped in a huge swirl of dust.

With a sinking feeling Legios saw that the swirl of dust was drifting his way. Oh wonderful! Any soldier with an ounce of crazy initiative would see that and see an opportunity to attack out of the dust.

“Steady! Mortarmen, prepare to defend yourselves! Fire only on my command!” Legios ordered.

The carriage pulled past him and stopped at a barricade of soldiers and horses that blocked the road a little further north.

Legios spared the coach just a single glance, and then turned back, studying what little he could see as the pall of dust moved over them.

The dust cloud was, Galzar be praised, breaking up. Legios forced himself to sit still on his horse, watching as the dust dissipated. Beyond, the soldiers of the God-King were lined up in serried ranks. Even as he watched, three men rode forward, rifles held reversed.

Both of the Mortar Brothers came up. Big spoke first. “The carriage is a noble woman and her daughter. She says they are fleeing for their lives. They say that there’s a new king in Tenosh.”

Legios knew that intelligence was important and thus, he had to keep the women safe. “Are there any servants with them?”

“No, just the two woman. The younger was driving the team. Captain, those horses are all but dead. I’m not sure how they made it this far. The carriage is a wreck; it should have fallen apart miles ago.”

“Get Sergeant Hollar up, he’ll ride forward with me. Tell those women this is their lucky day!”

The sergeant appeared, and, as always, he appeared eager to beard death. Twice Legios had asked the man flat out why he courted death. Twice he’d answered that he followed where Legios led. Legios was sure the man had a death wish. On the other hand, he could speak and understand Mexicotál, the language of their enemies and was as fine a soldier as any man could be.

The two of them rode toward the God-King’s soldiers. Legios smiled to himself. You were supposed to match parley party sizes. In theory if you outnumbered them, you were trying to overawe them, and if you were fewer, you were supposed to be making fun of them.

Normally Legios would have stopped a few feet from the soldiers of the God-King and wait for them to move up. This time he continued past them for a hundred yards before stopping.

The God-King’s commander was livid when he finally faced Legios, having had to back track. “Give us those women!” he demanded.

“No,” Legios told him. “You are trespassing. Turn around and go back the way you came. These are the lands of the High King and you may not pass.”

“Just how many men are you willing to spend for two faithless women, soldier?”

“I am Captain Legios, of the High King’s Heavy Weapons Company. Perhaps you’ve heard of us? To close with us you’ll have to gallop through a mile of mortar fire. I have sixty mortars–we can fire a dozen rounds each in that time. Many, many times more shells than you have soldiers. My mortarmen are famous for their accuracy. Then you would have another hundred and fifty mounted infantry to overcome, already in cover.

“Your men would get one volley, Captain, against men in cover. My men, sir, about four to your one by then, would get three shots off before you closed with them. Except of course, none of your men would be alive, none of you would reach our position. Perhaps I might lose one or two men, perhaps not.

“Turn around, Captain and leave. Or die here, with your men.”

“One day we’ll be back.”

Legios laughed. “What, another couple of years?”

The man spat in Legios’ face, turned and rode his horse away, followed by the other two.

Legios wiped the spittle from his face with a bandana, then stayed sitting in rifle range as the God-King’s soldiers turned around and started south. The last few of them were buried once more in the cloud of dust, drifting north once again.

Sergeant Hollar laughed. “I liked what you told him, sir!”

“I don’t think he did. Let’s get back, Sergeant.”

He had a hasty conference with his lieutenants. “They are withdrawing,” Legios told them. “Nonetheless, we’ll remain in a defensive position until we’re sure they’re south of the boundary.” Legios nodded to his head scout. “Signal me what their intentions are.”

“Yes, sir. I would have earlier, except the sun...”

“Yeah,” Legios agreed. The sun wasn’t always in a good place for mirror communications. Late in the afternoon was a bad time for it, with enemies to the south.

The man vanished into the desert.

“Big? What have we got?”

“You’re going to need to talk to them, sir. It sounds like there’s been a revolt in Tenosh.”

Legios lifted an eyebrow. That would interest the High King and Duke Tuck. It was still a mental effort for Legios to keep his allegiances straight. He was oath and honor bound to the High King, but detached to serve Duke Tuck, helping to train his mortar soldiers. Half of his time was spent at Tecpan, training Lady Judy’s soldiers. It made his head spin sometimes, thinking about it!

Big Mortar wasn’t more forthcoming, so Legios rode towards the rear, where the women were. A canvas fly had been erected and the two women were resting on chairs at a table that had been set up in the shade.

Legios stopped when he saw them. Both of them had their faces elaborately painted in the henna-dye that the Mexicotál used. Two kinds of people had faces painted like that. The Mexicotál, loyal to the High King, spitting in the face of the former God-King on the eve of battle. And subjects of the God-King, about to ascend a pyramid, where a priest would remove their still-beating hearts and offer them up as a prayer to their blood-thirsty gods.

Legios spent a few heartbeats trying to get past the paint; it wasn’t truly possible. The woman was older, perhaps in her forties, with the black hair and black eyes of the Mexicotál. She wasn’t fat like most of the noblewomen of the God-King, but it was clear she’d been a mother. Her lips were full; her nose had an impressive break.

The girl was younger, perhaps twenty summers, but otherwise a twin of her mother, although she was much thinner.

“Are they still advancing?” the older woman asked.

“No, they are withdrawing.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, ma’am. We’ll watch them until they are south of the treaty boundary, but we won’t interfere with them.”

Legios paused. “I am Captain Legios of the Heavy Weapons Company.”

“I am Talu. My husband was a noble in Tenosh and this is my daughter, Maya. After the God-King was killed, my husband’s star was in ascendancy, as he backed the daughter-in-law of the God-King. I swear, my husband’s goal, as was that of most of the nobles, was to maintain order and stability in the realm.

“Less than a moon ago, Xyl, a soldier, and a cousin of the God-King, spoke to the Council of Nobles, telling them that the Elder Gods had deserted us, that the days of the God-Kings, priests and sacrifices were over and that we had to overthrow the old ways.

“I guess he had already talked to many of those men, because they acclaimed him King. Not God-King, but just the King, King of the Olmecha. Anyone who didn’t swear immediate loyalty to him was killed. Not killed on the pyramid, you understand, but taken out in the town square and shot. My husband died there, one of those who wouldn’t swear to the usurper.

“My daughter and I talked long into the night, knowing they’d come for us in the first light of dawn. Loyal servants prepared my carriage and urged us to flee.

“We thought we’d gotten away free. But last night our last servant went into a village to buy food and didn’t return. My daughter and I–we respect the old Gods. We expected to die, so we painted our faces as those about to meet their Gods should.” She closed her eyes and a tear leaked down her cheek.

“Our courage failed. We fled when they came for us,” the daughter interjected.

Big Mortar laughed. “Girl, it sounds more like an attack of common sense.”

The young girl looked at Legios. “Are we truly safe?”

“As safe as I can make you,” he told her.

For the first time Legios noticed that she was rather pretty, if you looked past the paint. Breasts...she was one of the locals and they didn’t wear anything above the waist except during ceremonies. Her breasts drew his gaze, no matter how often he tried to look elsewhere. Her mother was heavier, but she had a stately grace that bespoke her nobility; her breasts weren’t bad, either.

“How much do you know about this new king?” Legios asked, trying to distract himself.

“He was a soldier. Of all of those at Three Hills he was our only general who came back with any honor. He commanded the artillery, from the first day to the last when he fought our enemies. When he could fight no longer, he destroyed what remained of his guns and made his way to Zimapan, where he took command.

“When the people there rose up in favor of your king, General Xyl organized a fighting retreat of the surviving soldiers. After the old God-King signed the truce, he disobeyed his orders and tried to retake Zimapan.

“After the God-King was killed, General Xyl became the head of the army. I have no knowledge of his plots, but he must have plotted well. Many of the nobles and all of the army went over to him at once. They fed the priests to the mobs, along with the loyal nobles. Not even a moon quarter and it was over. We survived by staying ahead of the news.”

Legios looked at Big Mortar who nodded. “You write it up, Captain, I’ll get the signalman ready to go. Duke Tuck is going to want to talk to these two in Xipototec as soon as we can get them there,” Big told his captain.

Legios turned to the two women and smiled as politely as he could. “All those who flee from the south are welcome in the lands of the High King and they are most welcome in the lands of Duke Tuck of Xipototec and Mexico. I will send some soldiers with you and you can gather your things from your carriage and we’ll make up a wagon for you. I will send you to Duke Tuck right away; I’m sure he will want to hear everything you have to say.”

The mother and daughter traded glances. Talu spoke up. “Captain, we’re used to our carriage. If we may, we’ll just keep it.”

“Ma’am, it’s all beat up. It’s a special miracle of Dralm that it lasted as long as it did. We’re nearly eighty miles south and east of Xipototec, and I doubt if your carriage would last the first dozen of those miles. It is no trouble, I assure you. We can put some blankets down for padding, like we do for our wounded. It’s quite comfortable.”

“Well, until it breaks, we’d prefer to keep our carriage,” the older woman insisted. “It’s a family heirloom, you understand. It belonged to my grandmother.”

Short Mortar tugged at Legios’ arm and waved a little distance off. Legios excused himself and went to listen to the lieutenant.

“Sir, meaning no offense, but it’s pretty clear that there are more ‘heirlooms’ in that carriage than what she is saying. I mean if you had an entire night to prepare to leave, I imagine you’d come away with something that might ease your way when you get wherever it is you’re going, right?”

Legios nodded, surprised he hadn’t realized that himself. But, when you don’t have any money to speak of, money isn’t the first thing you think about. He couldn’t very well ask them to leave the carriage with him. While he trusted himself, and his soldiers were some of the best in Hostigos, he doubted if they were all that loyal, not if someone dumped a treasure in their laps.

“Who should go to Xipototec with them? You or your brother?” Legios asked.

Short smiled. “My brother, the newly married man, sir.”

“Well, get with him and detail off a hundred men to go north with him; have him take some wagons. Get one ready as I said, pack some empty boxes and crates. When they stop for the night, or if the carriage finally collapses, tell your brother to erect a screen around the women and their carriage, and then have their possessions loaded into the wagon.

“At night, have him set sentries on their wagon, older and steadier soldiers, in at least threes.” Legios sighed. “Have them searched when they come off guard duty.”

Short grimaced. “That isn’t going to be very popular.”

“No, but there will be no way to hide what those women have. You get those wagons ready. I’ve got a message to write to the duke, and then we’ll get them moving.”

Short Mortar saluted and went calling for the logistos lieutenant.

Legios wrote a terse paragraph with the important points. He spent another few heartbeats checking it, and then gave it to the signal sergeant for transmission.

He had time to return to the women and reassure them that he was an honorable man and would do everything to keep their “heirlooms” safe, before the signal sergeant returned.

“The duke says it’s a good plan. He wants us to stay at the boundary for another three days, then return to Xipototec,” the signal sergeant told Legios.

Legios acknowledged and then returned to the women.

“I’m pleased to have met you, Lady Talu, Lady Maya. Have a safe trip.”

It was really hard to keep his mind on anything else besides the daughter’s breasts.

The escort column formed and headed north. The rest of them shook down into their own column and continued on south.

Just before sundown the scouts were back. “The God-King’s men continued past the boundary, Captain. We watched them travel for a half dozen miles where they stopped to make camp as darkness started to fall.”

Legios judged the terrain and the sun, just touching the horizon. There was no way he could reach the boundary before the sun was completely down. It wasn’t worth the trouble to push hard if they were supposed to be here for a couple of days. “Keep a close watch on them, particularly if they try something tricky tonight.”

The Mexicotál scout was one of the better ones and he laughed. “We won’t be that lucky!”

The camp for the night had to be done with extra care. The horses and wagons went into a ravine, while the men had to prepare fighting positions in the desert. They might be some of the best fighting men in Hostigos, but they could also complain just as well or better than anyone else.

Midmorning the next day, they reached the wash that was the treaty boundary. Technically the High King claimed the southern bank, because that was as far south as Lord Tuck had fought, and beaten, soldiers of the God-King, but they weren’t supposed to cross it, not even the scouts.

The scouts reported that the column appeared to be undiminished and was continuing southwards. At least his soldiers had less to complain about, as soldiers had been in this position frequently over the last two years and there were fighting positions and shelters already built. Of course, that meant that they were free to complain about the boredom of border patrolling. The Heavy Weapons Company was very good at whatever it did!

II

Judy Bondi, Countess of Tecpan, nodded as regally as she could to those gathered at the long table where the Council of Tecpan sat in session.

“Please, be seated,” she intoned.

Most of the men at the table sat with alacrity. Only one other woman was present, and that was her friend, Lydia Valenzuela, who wasn’t seated at the table, but at a desk a few feet away, pen in hand and a stack of paper in front of her.

Judy smiled at Lydia, who grinned back. By rights, Lydia should be sitting at the main table too, as she was officially the Secretary of the Council of Tecpan, but the men in the room had enough of a problem with one woman at the table, and still had serious doubts about her position at the head of the table. Still, Lydia sat waiting for her countess, while everyone else stood. A small thing, but powerfully symbolic.

Lydia had suggested some things and Judy had gotten in the spirit of it, and before her friend and mentor, Lord Tuck, Duke of Mexico, could intervene, a bunch of new words had entered the Mexicotál language. It was half a schoolgirl joke on their mentor, half serious. They had needed those new words!

Judy looked down the long table at the assembled faces. “Lord Gamelin is traveling to Zimapan, to meet with Grand Marshal Hestophes,” she told those assembled. “He is at least a moon quarter or more from reaching the Grand Marshal’s headquarters. Duke Tuck, however, will be here shortly after High Sun tomorrow. The purpose of this meeting is to make sure that everything is ready for the duke’s visit.”

She gestured to the man that sat at her left hand.

“Alcalde Kiliwia, please, if you would, have the announcements to the people been made?”

“Yes, Countess. We have declared the remainder of the day after High Sun tomorrow to be a holiday, so there should be quite a few people turn out to applaud the Duke of Mexico.”

Judy nodded, hiding her smile. Alcalde had been Lydia’s choice for a title; it meant “mayor” in Spanish, but Spanish was a language that existed back home, wherever that was. Spanish didn’t exist here and now. But, since there had never been a person with the particular duties the Alcalde had before, no one had objected to a title none of them had ever heard of.

Before the war, a noble of the God-King had ruled Tecpan. He had been more or less the equivalent of a count, and the title was passed to the noble’s heirs. There had been about fifty-five thousand people living in and around Tecpan back then. Now it was closer to a hundred and fifty thousand.

At first she and her new husband, Count Gamelin of the Trygath, ruled by military fiat. Even then it was clear that some of the local citizens had to be involved in the governing of the city and its environs, and they’d talked to people and eventually chosen two dozen men and half a dozen women to be on the first city council.

After six moons, the council had voted on a new council, defining positions and selecting people to fill them. Judy had been upset when the men promptly voted all the women off, but she’d had no choice but to acquiesce, because she was the one who’d set the rules.

She smiled politely as the Alcalde went on speaking about the various preparations made for the duke’s visit, including places the duke would be taken to show off what had been accomplished in the six moons since his last visit.

She had a little surprise for the Council of Tecpan. She had set the rules, and they served for two years or, if she wished, she could dissolve the Council and call a new election. She, Gamelin, Lydia, Tuck and Tanda Havra had discussed it, and they decided that barring extraordinary circumstances, she should let the two-year term of the Council run out.

It was quite clear that the Council members didn’t understand the new voting rules, but it was all there, written down for the people of Tecpan to read the words of the “Constitution.” It said, “All adult citizens of Tecpan may vote in each election. Adults are everyone older than seventeen.”

The men of the Council still thought like men had when they’d been under the rule of the God-King, where there hadn’t been very many citizens. For one thing, none of them dreamed that High King Kalvan included women as citizens...even if the High King regularly spoke of it, proclaimed it and rewarded women as he did men. After all, Judy herself stood at the head of the Council table and that, if nothing else, should remind them of the rules.

Judy and Lydia had been working with women’s groups, doing small things to improve conditions for everyone in general, but women in particular. One very popular thing was the “Woman’s Investment Association” which was something Tuck had read about in a book. Small groups of women got together and joined their money together and invested it in livestock or some simple business.

As a result, quite a few women had taken advantage of having the extra capital and were now doing quite well for themselves, doing everything from raising cows, pigs, and chickens to running small restaurants. One enterprising set of twin sisters bought some scrap copper and made a still, and were distilling fermented corn liquor–aka moonshine. Those two women were now rich, and dozens of others had copied their product. Demand still far exceeded supply.

One thing that she and Lydia stressed when talking to women’s groups was the importance of political power to go with their growing economic power, and how voting for the Council of Tecpan would be an important milestone.

The Alcalde finished talking and Judy nodded pleasantly to him as he sat down. “Thank you, Alcalde. I’m sure Tecpan will show the duke a fine welcome.

“Counselor Mam, will we have good news for the duke as well?”

Counselor Mam was the logistos of Tecpan, kind of a cross between a treasurer and supply clerk.

“Yes, Countess,” he said, and then launched into a long list of what had been produced in the last six moons. It was an amazing list. The townspeople were impressed with their countess and their duke. The God-King’s noble for Tecpan had taken a third of everything produced, keeping half for himself and sending half on to the God-King. Judy kept only one part in five, and she sent a third of what she got to Tuck and another third to Grand Marshal Hestophes in Zimapan.

With taxes reduced by forty percent, with the end of forced labor and, above all, the end of the sacrifices every moon quarter on top of the pyramid, the economy had really boomed. In fact, she was now keeping more than the old count of Tecpan had gathered in total.

Judy thanked him as well, and then gestured to Counselor Huichol, more or less the counselor for education. “Counselor, how go the schools?”

“Because of the generosity of you and your noble husband, Countess, people flock to the schools. We still have trouble training enough teachers. Nearly twenty thousand children are attending half days of school. There are nearly five thousand adults for at least a palm width a day. Enrollment is up a tenth, from this time six moons ago.”

He was justifiably proud, Judy thought. Of all of the Counselors, he was the one she thought who worked the hardest and who was producing simply amazing results. Under the God-King few people had learned to read and write, virtually none except priests learned anything beyond reading and writing. And many of those priests had died in the war, slaughtered by the people whom they’d slaughtered in their millions for millennia.

Finding teachers had been nearly impossible; Judy had helped, Lydia had helped. A few of the High King’s soldiers, on loan to help train the new Army of Mexico had also been drafted as teachers. It had taken a great deal of effort to bootstrap the process.

And now there was a Tecpan Academy, where a couple of dozen teachers from Hostigos taught more advanced teachers. Full literacy was about five or ten years away, but if the people of Tecpan had been amazed at the progress they’d made since the war, once the literacy numbers were up, they’d be even more amazed.

Those were the main speakers; most of the other half dozen Counselors were responsible for subtasks like Agriculture and what Judy called the “Burger Counselor” who represented the artisans and a growing middle class.

“We have every reason to be proud of our city of Tecpan,” Judy told them at the conclusion of the session. “As the commander of the city’s military forces I’m pleased to tell you that we have more than twenty thousand soldiers serving full time, and another fifteen thousand militia. We continue to exercise with the Duke of Mexico’s soldiers, and we’ve conducted an exercise with some of the Grand Marshal’s cavalry.”

She smiled at her counselors. “After the Duke’s visit, we’ll have another meeting and I’ll inform you of what he had to say. I’m sure he’s going to be quite pleased with our progress!”

III

King Freidal was blunt with Noia the next morning. “The more I think about this, the more I think you should leave as secretly as possible. I wish my lady wife hadn’t made such a fuss last night; people will be talking of that for days and days!”

“My guard sergeant was an idiot,” Elspeth said pertly. “Moreover, since when do sergeants get to intervene between a soldier’s petition and his sovereign?”

“In theory, never,” Freidal told Elspeth. “In practice, all the time, or I’d be hearing petitions nearly every day! It’s over and done with; we must proceed anyway.

“Lady Noia, the clothes and weapons you brought with you will be returned to you after lunch. Don them. This afternoon Trilium will take you to the muster of the company that’s forming to escort a convoy of supplies to Outpost.

“You will find it a very strong company. I’ve gotten word that someone may try to strike one of the parties going east. I want to dissuade anyone from even trying.”

“Yes, sire.”

“My lady wife inducted you into a particular sisterhood, I understand?”

“Yes, sire.”

“I don’t belong to it,” he told her.

“You can be an ex-officio member, so can Tuck, Gamelin and the High King,” Elspeth told him. Then she had to explain the words to Freidal and Noia.

“As to what I was saying, while I don’t officially belong, like all men, I find the taking of a woman against her will to be repugnant. True men can smile at a woman, and she, if she’s willing, will come to him. Force should not be, must not be, part of that.”

“Trilium is promoted corporal. I reviewed his records myself. He has been a sergeant four times, twice he was promoted for bravery. The men who have broken him in rank are a list of men I wouldn’t put in charge of a latrine digging party.

“After lunch this afternoon, Lady Noia, you will have to don those clothes you don’t like very much. Corporal Trilium will take you to the muster where you will report for duty as a common cavalry private. You won’t fall off your horse, right?”

“No, sire.”

“Since I now belong to Elspeth’s circle, you have to call me Freidal. Your new company will depart early tomorrow for Outpost. Now that the Hostigi and Ruthani don’t oppose us, the trip takes about a moon. Once there, see Count Errock; he already knows you are coming.”

“How can that be,” Noia asked, “if it’s a moon there?”

“I talk to the High King through Outpost on any clear day,” Freidal told her bluntly. “It’s mostly secret and I wish it was a more closely held secret, but for now, it still works. I don’t expect trouble, but these are days where I think we must start expecting the unexpected as the High King says.

“I can’t see what is going on clearly, but clearly there are things going on. I can’t help but think that the reason why we can see something now is because of the sheer volume of their deeds as they get close to whatever it is they plan.

“As I say, I don’t expect trouble, nor do I expect that if trouble comes it will be directed at you in particular. Just be cautious.”

Noia nodded. “And Corporal Trilium?”

“Lady Noia,” Elspeth spoke, “he does not fit the pattern of a spy. Unless he is a very, very clever spy. I would trust him more than the other soldiers you are with, but I’d hesitate to risk my life on his loyalty.”

Noia made no sign, but she knew that was a lie. The queen had let an armed soldier kneel to her, ordered her guards away and otherwise behaved as if the man wasn’t armed. Put Trilium in the “unlikely a spy” category.

Trilium looked her over after lunch, carefully. “You’ll do,” he said eventually.

“Wonderful,” Noia replied bitterly.

“This will be the last time I say these words. My lady, all men know the realm is in great danger. The God-King hates us, and half the nobles, no matter how much gold jingles in their coffers, hate the idea of serfs and slaves free to walk the streets, bowing to no man, particularly them.

“Plots abound; that has always been the way of things, and now, more than ever. Trust me and I will keep you safe.”

“You’ll keep a boy safe,” she said, the bitterness nearly choking her.

“I know what you are; the king and queen do. You have my word–I swear it. I will keep you safe, until my last breath escapes my lips! This is subterfuge. It is unpleasant, but necessary. All true men want to face their enemies, look them in the eye and defeat them in honorable combat. That is Galzar’s Way.

“But not all of our enemies are like that. The shadow-hugging enemies of the realm strike from the dark. They do not seek honorable combat–they seek to strike and flee, without ever being known. They poison, they strike in blackened rooms, or anonymously in crowds.

“Subterfuge is a weapon we must use against these enemies. It isn’t nice or pleasant; it isn’t always the most honorable course. But what is honorable about lying in a gutter, bleeding your life out, while your enemies rejoice at the back blow that felled you?”

Noia chuckled. “A poetic troublemaker. I’m impressed!”

“A pragmatic soldier. Now, listen to me about what to expect...”

She did listen and when the two of them reported to the new company, there were no problems. That night Noia sat on a rock, a fire a short distance away, a fire that sent sparks into the sky and provided a welcome warmth to ward off the damp chill of the night.

One of the sergeants, an older man named Herculium, had been drinking wine, staring morosely at the fire. Someone said something disparaging about the army that had marched on Outpost.

“You laugh,” the old sergeant retorted angrily. “You wouldn’t laugh if you’d been there. The last time I made this trip, before we withdrew, between the Mud River and the base camp, we were attacked four times. Twice at places they had blown down rocks on the road. A dozen men died before we were done. We never saw anyone to shoot at.”

“You should have attacked!” one of the other soldiers said, waving a beer mug. “That would have set them back!” 

“Attack? Which direction? The mortars came from one direction; rifle shots came from several directions. Do you think we sat on our hands when our brothers were dying? Of course we attacked! We attacked again and again...always against empty air. They would see us coming and withdraw.”

“Cowards!” someone else said.

“Cowards?” the old sergeant responded, laughing. “We were sixteen thousand to their four thousand, at least at the outset. If enemies attacked your home, would you sit supine or shoot at your enemies?”

“They should have attacked us as true men should!” the man insisted.

“Attacked and died?” the sergeant laughed. “Oh, you never want to go to South March! You’d better never be assigned to the division that’s training with Lord Tuck in Mexico!

“Those men shot and killed us from cover; they were four, five, six to our hundred. What, bless Galzar, is cowardly about attacking against ten or twenty to one odds against you? Galzar’s Mace! They smote us and soundly!”

“They don’t stand up and fight, as true men should!” the speaker raged.

“You won’t stand up,” the sergeant opined, “not when the case shot and mortars are whistling around your ears! You won’t stand up when the bullets fly! You’ll be with me, hugging the ground, wishing for a deeper hole!”

The sergeant waved to the south. “Down south are two hundred million people, ten million of them soldiers of the God-King. They want our lands. You remember that, when you are out there! They want you dead! They want to take your wives and children up on one of their pyramids and slice their living hearts from their chests! They want to rape your mothers, sisters, wives and daughters and make slaves of them, until they decide to take them up the pyramid!

“You pay attention to your duty! Don’t listen to fools who’ve never heard a shot fired in battle!”

He stalked off, leaving those at the fire silent.

Later Noia was lying on her blanket, staring at the sky. One of the younger sergeants came up and shook Trilium. “Corporal, Captain Landsruhl says you and your blanket warmer are to walk the inner camp perimeter.”

“Which watch?”

The sergeant gusted a sigh. “The last watch of the night. Every night, in addition to any other guard duty you pull.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Noia didn’t think Trilium was happy about this.

Well after midnight a soldier came to wake them.

“Who do we report to?” Trilium asked.

“Sergeant Herculium has the watch, Corporal. He’s by the fire.”

They gathered up their weapons and walked to the fire. The old sergeant was there and grunted when Trilium reported to him. “Just loop around the area outlined by the firelight. Singly, you understand?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Trilium explained to Noia what she was to do, then set off in one direction, while she set off in the other.

The next four palm widths were excruciatingly dull, but at least she got to stretch her legs.

“It will be worse tomorrow,” Trilium told her as they put their rifles down as the sun was rising in the northeast.

Noia smiled slightly. “It is a tiny thing,” she told him.

“It won’t seem tiny by the time we get to Outpost. But you are right; it isn’t important.” He glanced around and saw none were close. “Besides, you-know-who told me that I would have to endure such as this and that if I couldn’t, I wasn’t worth the trouble.”

“We will get through this. A moon and a bit,” Noia reminded him.

“We need to get some food. We’ll be moving soon,” he said a little louder.

They ate, made ready and then helped the drovers get the wagons ready for the road. The sun was over the horizon, but a fog came up with the dawn, pressing down on them. A palm width later they were at the ferry dock, helping load the wagons onto ferries, then making double sure the wagons were chained solidly to the ferries.

It was mid-morning before they cast off. Noia took a place near the steersman of their ferry and watched what he did.

Later, Trilium told her that they would be relieving the rowers for a palm width. They descended a narrow ladder, to a dark, dank oar deck. They had to walk crouched over, the deck was so low.

The rowing wasn’t so much hard as continuous. After half of their rowing watch they were allowed a breather, and some wine was passed around for them to drink. Noia turned to Trilium and said, “My father...” She saw the minute shake of his head and changed her words from “never treated his soldiers like this,” to “never told me soldiering was this much work!”

Someone nearby laughed, confirming Trilium’s warning was justified. “A few days of this and you’ll have hair on your cheeks!” Everyone laughed at the jape.

Noia looked at the man’s scraggly beard and smiled. “I hope my beard grows in a little fuller than yours.”

That brought howls of laughter from the others, and then they were back at it.

Late in the afternoon they reached the southern end of bay and disembarked. They went less than a mile past the ferry dock before they camped for the night, everyone exhausted.

After that the work wasn’t quite so hard, but Trilium had been right, the night watches were unpleasant, and doubly so when they had guard duty at night as well. They only had guard duty every two days, and on the fourth and eighth days, their guard duty matched the extra tour they had to do, and it was no worse than the others had to endure.

By then they’d crossed the Mud River and were in the lands controlled by the Lost Ruthani.

“You won’t see the Ruthani,” Sergeant Herculium told everyone the night before they crossed the river. “We used to dread the nights when the mortars didn’t fire. You’d get up in the first light of dawn and find someone dead in camp; they’d slip in and slit a throat, without anyone being the wiser. Once, they killed every single man on the last watch before dawn, including the watch sergeant, sitting at the fire.”

Trilium usually wasn’t talkative, but he spoke up. “I was with a patrol that caught a Hostigi scout. We never saw the Lost Ruthani scout who was with him. That night, right in the middle of our camp, the Ruthani snuck in, cut the man free and they took off running.

“About two dozen of us were about a finger width behind them and were mounted. We rode half the night, having a tough time following their trail in the dark, but we didn’t lose them. At dawn we’d come a dozen miles and in the distance we saw another of our patrols. They were a mile away, coming along a ridge.

“There was a single shot, and the lieutenant leading that patrol pitched off his horse, dead. The Ruthani and Hostigi were between that patrol and us! The patrol saw us, thought we were the ones who had killed their officer and attacked us. Two men in my patrol died, as well as their officer and four more wounded.”

“Surely you ran them down after that!” the skeptic said.

“Surely we didn’t!” Trilium told the man. “We spent most of the morning getting sorted out. When we went to start trailing them again, we couldn’t find their trail. They knew the patrol was there, you understand? They led us to it on purpose, leaving sign clear enough for us to follow.”

“The Hostigi are devils!” someone muttered.

Herculium laughed. “No, they’re just good soldiers. We’re getting better, we are. Most of us.” His eyes went to Captain Landsruhl, sitting at another fire, talking to his lieutenant and their cronies.

A few finger widths later they were getting set for sleep or watch, when the captain called everyone to one of the fires, included the drovers.

“I am required by treaty to tell you of this. The treaty permits us to travel without hindrance on this road. This road, by treaty, extends two hundred paces in each direction from the center of the road. There are adequate waterholes and they are marked. You have to stay within two hundred paces of the marked road and the waterholes.

“If you stray beyond two hundred paces you are subject to being shot without warning. We tell the Ruthani in advance when we’re coming; they are certainly already watching us.

“I haven’t seen a man killed, not with my own eyes. I have seen a man need to be treated from rock splinters when he laughed and went too far. The bullet missed his head by inches. At least once, a man in another company took another step after the warning shot and was promptly shot dead.

“Do not stray. The penalty, should you somehow survive, is a full year working in the fireseed mill in South March.”

Noia didn’t much like the desert. There were animals and plants, although nothing like what she was used to. Water became a precious commodity to be carefully hoarded and measured, instead of a nuisance.

For two days after the river crossing they had some difficulty with the ridges running down to the river and soft sand, but this was a well-traveled road and the drovers knew the bad places and what to do.

After the first bad spots the land was flat, the only mountains were on the horizon, and those were small and isolated. They made good time and on the fourth day past the river, a little after High Sun, they stopped at a well and ate and rested a bit. The lead drover told Captain Landsruhl that if they pushed on there was a good camp ahead a half day ahead.

Noia had already learned that eight or twelve miles was a good day’s travel with the wagons. Even though they’d made good time, she doubted if they could do eight more miles by nightfall; evidently Captain Landsruhl agreed with her.

The head drover stalked off angry while the soldiers weren’t at all unhappy to hear that they were stopping for the day. The men were more tired, Noia saw, than the horses and the reason for that was they’d changed horses at a remount post at the Mud River.

The heat of the afternoon was the worst yet. Old Herculium sided with the drovers. “We’ve lost a half day,” he opined, sitting in the shade of one of the wagons.

The sergeant was the center of a small group of men who usually stuck together.

“It’s terribly hot,” Noia said quietly.

“It won’t be any less hot tomorrow. This trip will take forever if we only move half days. If you have got to be out in this, you might as well be moving.”

The next day everyone was muttering to themselves. They reached the next water hole well before High Sun; they could have easily have reached it the day before.

Noia and Trilium were part of the party that had to walk down the bank of the wash they were following to the waterhole. Sergeant Herculium and two others were with them, but they were acting as lookouts, but their rifles were slung over their shoulders. They did lend a hand with the buckets on the return trip, which was nice.

They made another trip and while the water carriers were filling the buckets, the sergeant prowled a few feet away, looking intently at the ground. Noia saw him stoop down and pick up something and immediately put it in his fireseed pouch, but she thought it was just a pretty rock.

There was no question about stopping early on this day! They took a shorter than usual afternoon break and kept on. In the middle of the afternoon they’d come another eight miles. This waterhole was right next to the road and they very quickly filled their water barrels and then continued on, the next well only six miles ahead.

Herculium groused at supper. “Tonight we should have been sleeping at the remount station; it’s only another half day’s travel ahead. They have real beds! Worse, the next water after that is sixteen miles further! No one stops in the middle of that, unless they are sun-addled! So tomorrow we lose another half day.”

He looked around; there were just the usual few nearby. “One thing I should have mentioned, but you have to know it’s dangerous.” He reached into his fireseed pouch and pulled something out. Once he again he glanced around. “If you’re careful and knew where to look, you can find things like this out here.”

“It” was a golden-colored rock the size of the coin Noia carried, but much thicker. The sergeant hefted it. “A couple of ounces at least. Pure gold.”

They all sat stock still, staring at the chunk of gold. “It just lies on the ground?” Trilium breathed in amazement.

“Well, not exactly. It washes down from these mountains,” the sergeant waved at the mountains that lay to their north. “The best time to look is after a heavy rainstorm. Knowing when and where to look is something you pick up serving in Mountain Wall.”

Carefully, watching like a hawk, the sergeant let the others heft his rock. It was startlingly heavy and Noia was impressed. The notion of pieces of gold just lying in the dirt was a hard thing to get out of her head; no matter how many stories she’d heard about Mountain Wall.

“Not everyone knows about this,” Herculium told them. “You can’t go telling people. For one thing, like I said, it’s dangerous. The urge to go just another few steps is overpowering. And the Ruthani will kill you. If they think you’re looking for gold, they never miss, not even with the warning shot!”


	5. First Combat

I

A half moon after Legios had encountered the two women and their “heirloom” carriage, he stood before the duke and the duke’s wife to make his report. “Aside from the one brush, everything was quiet,” Legios concluded his verbal report.

“A ‘brush’ that was the most serious border incident since the war,” the duke mused.

“Yes, sir. We fired a single volley from our rifles and one round, each, from the mortars and they stopped.”

“Well, Captain, I’m pleased to tell you that Lady Talu has been a fountain of valuable intelligence. Her husband was a noble roughly equivalent to a duke, but also a little like a senior logistos. He ruled an agricultural regime a little north of Tenosh with about two million slaves and serfs, a dozen cities and maybe twenty towns.

“His duties consisted of taking a third of the crop for his own, then forwarding half of that on to the God-King. The quantities of grain and animals are difficult to credit, but three crops a year, most years...” The duke spread his hands in resignation.

“Her information on politics isn’t quite so detailed. Evidently she was intimately involved with running the regime, but left politics to her husband.

“We now have separate confirmation that they have a new king, and that he’s ended sacrifices and essentially wiped out the priesthood, along with a good chunk of the nobility. The army seems to have been pretty much spared.

“As a result Xyl is extremely popular with the people. What’s really scary is that for the first time they probably don’t need ten million soldiers to guard the Heartland against revolt. What’s more, there are early signs he’s opened enlistment in the army.”

Legios frowned. “Would that be wise? Wouldn’t that be teaching the under-classes military methods and tactics? Arming them?”

“Not if you’re a popular king, who has ended millennia of sacrifices on the pyramids and slaughtered those responsible. That’s even more scary than having some of those ten million soldiers released for other duties...because open enlistment represents a doubling or tripling of those numbers in a year or two.”

Legios set his face. “The desert won’t support that many fighting men.”

“The High King spoke to my face about what a plague of locusts it would be if the God-King’s people came north in any number. He wasn’t envisioning them being armed soldiers. Yes, they will be even more vulnerable to having their supply lines cut. However the resources they would be able to put on guarding those supply routes would make it something like an even battle.

“I don’t like to fight even battles.”

No, Duke Tuck didn’t. His military career was a list of battles where he’d struck hard and fast, and then, before his enemies had a chance to get set and organize, he hit them again–if anything, harder.

“Lord Duke, I don’t want to sound like a naive youth, but just what is it that they want from us? The regime you talked about–that is wealth beyond avarice! If they end the sacrifices for more than a few moons, starting them back up would plunge the new king’s realm into civil war. If he’s letting serfs into the army...”

“Serfs and slaves,” Tuck gently informed him.

Legios’ throat worked. “They will be changing then to be more like the High King’s realm.”

“Aye,” Tanda Havra spoke for the first time. “The results in the Great Kingdoms of ending slavery and serfdom are quite clear after a dozen years. As clear as the nose on a man’s face. Even in Zarthan the change in the year since they freed the slaves and serfs is clear. So, that’s what they’re trying, I suspect. Tuck worries about all those men turning into soldiers. I worry about all those farmers turning into smiths, artisans and builders as well.”

Tuck turned to her. “You know what the High King is planning?”

“Yes, but I don’t pretend to understand why.”

The duke turned to Legios. “Once, in my home, fifty years before my time, all the great kingdoms fought against each other in one huge war, each king picking one side or another. One side planned a lightning strike against the other, but bad weather and heroic defenders finally turned the tide literally at the gates of the capital of one of the defenders.

“They dug defenses, starting as simple foxholes in the ground. The battle raged and raged, moon after moon, then year after year. The foxholes were connected...it was safer than trying to run between them to bring supplies. Each side lined up cannons and men in vast numbers. That war raged for more than four years. There were great battles fought where a million men died in a day, two and half million in a moon quarter...to advance two or three miles.

“Finally my nation joined one of the sides and our enemies despaired and collapsed of exhaustion. The rage on the winner’s side at the cost, the death and destruction that had been mainly visited on just their kingdom, wasn’t to be denied. They made a peace so onerous that it was little more than twenty years before the war started again.

“Two generations of the youth of all those lands were consumed in those wars. Poets, singers, great men and tiny men. Heroes and cowards...they all died. And the High King knows of this and still wants to create static defensive works to stop the enemy south of Xipototec, Tecpan and Zimapan.”

Legios tried to visualize a battle were a million men died in a day. Something like that had already happened, when the God-King attacked the High King’s army. Did it really matter if they died on one day or two?

“We don’t want their lands!” Legios said, angry. “Why can’t they leave us alone!”

“Conquest, domination...just because we’re here. Just because they think they can win. Who knows why men go to war? But unless the new King of the Olmecha changes course, we’re set to go to war once again.” The duke sounded enormously sad.

“Let him! We defeated his predecessor! We’ll defeat him!”

“I believe that as well,” Tuck told him. “But the cost is going to be bitter; the bitterest draught any king or noble could drink. There is nothing sweet about contemplating spilling the blood of your subjects in rivers.

“As clever as I am, as clever as the High King is, they have more soldiers than we have people in our realms. And if we defeat those, they can raise a like number the following year...and maybe even a third year.”

Legios was stunned. Was there really no hope?

The duke must have read his mind. “Oh, the High King is clever and has many resources. I’m not bad myself. I would not want to be a soldier in an army marching in Tanda Havra’s direction. She is–protective–of our son.”

The High King was indeed clever, Legios thought. So was Duke Tuck. Lady Tanda Havra was brutal on her good days. What her bad days would be like didn’t bear thinking about.

“Tell me, Captain, how did Lieutenant Smyla do?”

Legios nodded. “Sir, he’s wasted as a junior lieutenant. He’s very steady, very competent. He learned as much about mortars as any man can in a moon.” Legios and the Duke Tuck exchanged glances. A moon quarter, really, that was all it took. That’s how long Duke Tuck had trained his first mortarmen, and it was longer by six days than the training Legios had.

“I’ll pass on your comments to Brigadier Markos. Now, I need to sit down with my senior officers and talk about how we want to proceed now with this new situation to our south.”

Legios mentally crossed his fingers. “And the two women from Tenosh–how did their ‘heirloom’ carriage fare?”

“You have to take some things for granted, Captain, when people talk to you. We all lie, and the closer to us the subject is, the more important the subject is, the more we lie. The carriage, Captain, had been specially prepared for such a trip. There is no way to tell its age, but it’s no heirloom. It has a steel frame; the timbering is thick oak. The team pulling their carriage are the eight finest horses in Xipototec these days. Lady Talu will make a fortune, just putting those stallions out to stud.

“I’m not sure what kind of wood the wheels are made of, but they are rock solid, with steel rims. The carriage has the same sort of steel springs as the High King’s steam puller wagons have, to smooth their ride. The carriage has a false bottom and I could not, in fairness, justify searching it, although I was tempted. Lady Talu and her daughter have found a very nice place that used to belong to one of the nobles here before the war and had been taken over by the town afterwards. They are renting it to Lady Talu.” He smiled at Legios. “They do not seem to lack gold Kalvans.”

“It looked like it was ready to collapse.”

“Dust, dirt, nicks and gouges in places that aren’t significant, Captain. Which tells me, if nothing else, that the revolt wasn’t as abrupt and unheralded as we heard, because that carriage wasn’t prepared in a night. Or even a moon.”

Legios tried to digest that, but wasn’t sure what to think. Duke Tuck clapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, yes, she certainly is a pretty young woman! Of course, now she’s started dressing like the other women of Xipototec. And Captain, one important verification of their story: two days after they reached the boundary, the word of the new king and the end of sacrifices reached Huspai.

“They had a party much like the one we held in Xipototec after we liberated the town, for two days afterwards. And that city remains loyal to the new King in Tenosh.

“Going back to the subject of Lieutenant Smyla, I’ll be sure to pass your comments on to Count Errock and Brigadier Markos at Outpost. And, as a reward for the lieutenant’s good work, tell him to gather his things and prepare to ride north tomorrow. We can only hope that the new king in Tenosh will need some time to put his house in order. I have a bad feeling about him, though. He was prepared, he knew what he was doing and did it quickly and ruthlessly. One thing that would do much to cement his rule about now would be a victory over one of his enemies. Us, the Zarthani or the High King.

“We could set him back for moons with a resounding defeat of his attempt. So, Smyla goes where he needs to go, as fast as possible. Other mortar-trained officers are going out to the isolated outposts along the road between Zarthan and Outpost, and from Outpost and Kingstown.”

“Yes, sir. If I go now, I might even catch him before he unpacks.”

II

The heat lasted longer into the night than it had in past days. The desert, Noia thought, was going to be an oven tomorrow. Like everyone else, she’d like to get to Outpost sooner rather than later, but she’d heard from several sources that the last few days of the journey were particularly grueling, and then there was the Barrier that, as those who’d seen it attested frequently and loudly, was a sheer vertical wall of rock the better part of a mile high.

Sergeant Herculium had the early watch, which meant that Noia and Trilium had a double duty night. They had four palm-widths to sleep after their first tour, before they were roused for their inner picket duties.

To Noia’s surprise Captain Landsruhl appeared as they prepared to walk their post. “Come with me,” he said abruptly and walked towards one of the fires.

“There goes our night vision,” Trilium whispered to Noia.

“Gather close,” the captain told them, beckoning them very close. His voice was the softest whisper. “The Ruthani scouts appear each night, just before the sun sets. They stand on a line between the camp and the sun to show us they are there. They weren’t there last night and they weren’t there tonight.”

He touched Trilium’s hand. “I’ve heard you’re a good soldier when you’re not telling officers where to stick their ideas.”

“I’m learning to hold my tongue,” Trilium told him.

“Well, I hope you are good. You have the outer picket tonight. I’ve told the men we’re going to have a roving picket, just outside the regular pickets. Be careful. I don’t like things that I don’t understand and I don’t understand this. Do your duty tonight and tomorrow you’ll be able to sleep all night again. No more extra duty.”

He waved them off into the darkness.

Trilium took Noia’s arm and walked with her into the darkness, stopping just past where the firelight spread. “Take a moment to let your eyes adjust. Check your pistols, your rifle.”

“Do you think there is danger?” Noia asked, curious.

“It is a hard thing to say, but I agree with Captain Landsruhl. Things I don’t understand make me cautious.”

“But who would attack us? The Ruthani? Why? They might be the High King’s allies, but he wouldn’t stand with them if they attacked Zarthan. And it would be crazy if they did.”

“Perhaps. The High King wouldn’t do it either. Zarthan is his ally against the God-King. The God-King might want to raid us, but how? They’re more than three hundred miles from here!”

Trilium looked around the dark. “We can’t stay together, not after the first circuit. We’ll pick a meet spot and wait for each other there. For heaven’s sake, don’t be late, because if you’re late, I’ll be rousing the camp. And if I’m late, you have to do the same.”

Noia nodded soberly. This was completely different than running from her brother and his men. There she’d seen his eyes, felt his hand on her flesh. It wasn’t something she’d ever forget! Here the danger was all vague and undefined. On the other hand, the waning crescent moon was still up, and between it and the stars there was enough light to place her feet.

They made one circuit of the outer pickets together, receiving challenges at each one. They agreed to meet at a rock that was about three feet across and two feet high. It was just a shade too low to be a comfortable seat.

Noia made three circuits, listening and watching carefully. It was on the fourth circuit that she noticed something unusual. It wasn’t so much something she saw or heard, instead it was the absence of things to hear. Earlier, coyotes had been howling from the mountains, but now she hadn’t heard them in more than a palm width. Usually there were crickets and other chirping insects that made occasional noises. Now, there was just a big fat nothing.

The next time she met Trilium she mentioned it. “The night has gone quiet.”

He looked at her, and then listened for a moment. “I’ll wait here–you go to the fire and rouse the captain, quietly. Tell him what you just told me.”

She walked over the fire, as if getting something to drink. Captain Landsruhl was sitting near it, his hands dangling, half asleep. She dipped down next to him and whispered quietly, “Captain, the night has turned quiet.”

“Be careful, continue the patrol.”

Both of them spoke in the softest of whispers. Noia walked back to where Trilium was waiting. He nodded. “Keep a hand on your pistol, but don’t unsling your rifle. Let them think we don’t know they’re out there.”

Noia glanced at the sky as she started her next circuit. There was less than a palm width until the sun would be up. There was already the faintest light to the northeast.

She was walking steadily, but not fast, her head swiveling from side-to-side, looking all around her. She was nearly half way around when she saw the odd shape. It was about thirty feet off, and looked like a branch sticking up from a bush. She turned her head away normally, and back again, when she was closer. Quite suddenly, she realized it was a rifle barrel. Someone was hiding behind the bush, and their rifle was too long and it was sticking up!

She kept walking the last few feet to where she would meet Trilium, then past it to meet him early. “Walk faster to the rock,” she whispered as they passed.

She walked a little faster, trying not to sound like she was hurrying. She joined Trilium at the rock. “There’s a man, about two hundred feet from where we stand. He was to my right, hiding behind a bush, his rifle is sticking up above the bush. About thirty feet from the path.”

He grimaced. “My turn to get a drink,” and then he walked quickly to the fire. The captain was still where he’d been, and even watching, Noia couldn’t tell if Trilium said something to the captain. All she saw was Trilium take a sip from a water jack.

A moment later he was back. “The camp is turned to. At the first sign of trouble, drop to the ground. Probably, just before it’s light enough to tell white from black.” He nodded in the direction he usually went. “You go that way this time.”

She did, walking more carefully than ever, staring hard at every shadow. Then, out of the night, Herculium appeared, cutting across her path. He stopped and undid his pants and started pissing on a bush.

“You’ll not tell the captain I had to go in the bushes?” the sergeant said with a laugh. “At my age you wake up in the middle of the night to piss and you can’t wait to get to the latrine trench.” He was speaking in a normal voice and Noia smiled.

“I saw someone with a rifle on the other side of the camp,” she told him, her voice a whisper.

“In about a heartbeat, you will want to get down. I’d try to avoid the piss puddle!”

Without hesitation he lifted his pistol and fired at something in the darkness. There was a choked cry, a few feet away. From across the camp, came another shot. The scream that followed was much louder.

Noia went full length into the dirt, pulling a pistol out and looking around. A few feet away Herculium was sprawled on the ground as well, and speaking like he was training recruits.

“Firing at night is something that takes a lot of practice. If you leave your eyes open when you shoot, the flash ruins your night vision. If you close your eyes at the last heartbeat, it’s easy to pull off target. The High King teaches his soldiers how to do it; we don’t.”

Behind them came a volley of shots, perhaps a hundred. Instantly the horses were screaming in fear and pain, and the horse lines dissolved. More shots rang out, now some from the camp.

“Back up towards the camp,” the sergeant told her. “Stay down. Crawl backwards.”

Crawl backwards? That would be a trick! And over the desert rocks and gravel? A painful trick!

To their front came a strange bugle call. Then a thunder of hooves and a steady drumbeat of rifle fire.

“Hold your fire!” Herculium shouted to the camp. “Hostigi soldiers coming in!”

Then perhaps fifty men on horses rode through billows of dust, some of them firing an occasional shot. They clumped in the middle of the camp, and a heartbeat later came another shattering volley from the north side of the camp. Another bugle call, and those men were charging again.

It was too fast for Noia, she didn’t understand what she’d just seen.

Captain Landsruhl’s voice boomed over the camp, calling everyone to the north side, even as the number of shots from the north was tapering off.

Sergeant Herculium stood, staring around, his face pale. If it had been just her, Noia would have stood as well. Instead, without any difficulty adding a tremor to her voice, “Is it safe to stand, sergeant?”

“Just now, not much more than hiding in the dirt.”

Trilium came running up, sliding to a stop. “You’re okay, Noius?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she told him.

The sergeant was looking around, shaking his head.

Trilium spoke quietly, addressing the veteran sergeant. “I’ve heard the stories; so have you. We thought them just that, didn’t we?”

“Aye,” the sergeant said. He shook himself. “I have things to do!” He rushed off, shouting for the other sergeants to report.

“Trilium,” Noia asked, “what are you talking about?”

“Not even a finger width,” Trilium said, shaking his head, obviously amazed.

“Please,” she said, more curious than ever.

Trilium drew himself up. “It is given to a great general to be able to turn an enemy’s mistakes against him once or twice in his lifetime.” He waved at the area south of the waterhole, now dotted with the bodies of soldiers of the God-King. “Twice in a finger width? Great Galzar!”

“Twice?” Noius was now very confused.

Trilium waved at the mounted Hostigi soldiers. They’d formed into groups and were going over the battleground, collecting weapons and making sure their enemies were truly dead. They worked quickly, with a quiet and deadly efficiency. There were a minimum of orders among them.

“There aren’t even fifty of them! They were outnumbered more than twice over! And then they struck and destroyed half of our enemies! Then our enemies made another mistake and they struck again and the last of our enemies died. They killed twice as many of the God-King’s soldiers as they were! I don’t think they took any wounded!”

Twice on the march they’d seen the snakes that rattled their tails and then killed. There were such back home, but they were rare. Here they were as common as dirt. “Like a rattlesnake,” Trilium said, his hand darting out in a swift striking motion. “They attack and you die. Galzar’s Mace! Were we ever fools to go to war against such as them!”

Noia looked around again. It hadn’t even seemed real, not really. One heartbeat they’d been in mortal peril, then there were rifle shots and their enemy was dead. Isn’t that how you wanted it to happen? But weren’t those stories?

III

Lieutenant Gryllos of the High King’s Sixth Mounted Rifle division looked out the window of his office at the setting sun. He ran his fingers over his small brown beard, and then turned to the other man in his office.

“Is there any word?”

“No, Lieutenant. This was a routine convoy and we only had two men following it. They did not report yesterday evening, and they did not report this morning.”

Sergeant Leem of the Lost Ruthani scouts shrugged. “They are dead,” he concluded.

Gryllos nodded. Perhaps if he was a pompous, self-important asshole, he’d disagree, but the Ruthani were the Ruthani. The Ruthani had learned a bitter lesson during the war about doing what they were told, and now the only time they didn’t was when they were dead.

He was here, miles away from help, with fifty troopers and two dozen other men, mostly horse herders. Which meant men who shoveled horse plop for a living, because they couldn’t do anything that required more brains.

“I’m going to pull everyone in and arm the herders,” he told the scout.

Leem prided himself on being frightening. He wore lion claws around his neck, his face was painted in the Mexicotál fashion and he carried more knives and pistols than any three men. Add to that the fact that Leem’s father had gone south and had personally killed the God-King of the Mexicotál and it made him a very scary individual. Everyone said it had been a stupid thing to kill the God-King, but no one denied that the Lion of the Ruthani and his companions had done it, not even those who followed the God-King.

Gryllos debated mentioning to Leem what Count Errock had sent earlier in the day, after Gryllos had expressed concerns about the safety of the convoy. “Succor at all costs.” There had followed two names and the instruction, “Save T. if possible. N. at all costs.” And had used a special code to spell the names.

All costs. That meant Gryllos and his fifty troopers and two dozen civilians, who had the serious misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were expected to die to keep the person named alive.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. Zarthan wouldn’t be attacking their own convoy. Not an important convoy, sent at the personal behest of King Freidal. The Ruthani weren’t attacking the convoy, not with some of their people gone missing. While Gryllos had been careful not to ask, there was no doubt in his mind that even now Ruthani were racing west. How many were coming? And when would they arrive? There would be no way to tell, even after they started to report, because they wouldn’t report any of that.

No, somewhere out there in the desert west of the remount station that Gryllos commanded were soldiers of the God-King. Since it would be impossible for any significant number to sneak north through the lands of the Duke of Mexico, it meant they had to have landed by ship at the mouth of the Mud River. At this time of the year the Mud River was navigable further north than usual, although the current was fast.

So, how many ships of soldiers? Gryllos laughed at that. He could deal with one. Which meant there were probably at least three. He chuckled aloud. Three! That had to be it. They wanted a surprise victory. An assured victory, but wouldn’t want to appear weak by sending too many soldiers.

“Why do you laugh, Lieutenant?” Leem asked.

“Three ships, six hundred men. A third stay to defend the ships, a hundred against the convoy, three hundred wait in ambush for us.”

“Four to one,” the Ruthani avowed. “Easy meat!”

“I wish! Not if they’re waiting in ambush. If it was the other way around, I’d agree. Tomorrow that convoy will signal for help and I’ll be honor-bound to go to their assistance.” Not to mention that his orders left him no honorable choice.

“Do you know the secret of victory, when fighting in the desert, Lieutenant?”

Gryllos fought his tongue. Saying “hiding” would earn himself an eternal enemy, even if the Lost Ruthani had been successfully hiding from their enemies for a thousand years. It wasn’t as though you could take pride in something like that.

“Doing something unexpected.” The High King couldn’t have said it better, Gryllos thought.

“Exactly. In a palm width it will be dark. I will go out a finger width later. Wait another palm width yourself and then bring your men. The convoy is at the closest well.”

“That is wishful thinking,” Gryllos told the Ruthani.

Leem grinned. “Of course! But we will either find them there or not. If not, it will be because the convoy died a day ago. That would not be your fault. We can then pull back here and hold, or if they are indeed too many, we can withdraw. If we find the convoy, odds are, our enemy’s largest force will be someplace close to this post, waiting for us to go to the convoy’s rescue. If we get in behind the weaker of the two forces...they won’t find us until too late.”

Gryllos was a senior lieutenant. This was the kind of decision he’d long dreamed of making. Except this was highly dangerous. One misstep, one mistake on the part of the stupidest of his men and it would end badly. Of course, defeating an enemy in detail was a classic tactic. A piece of cake, right? So why was he afraid?

He’d fought tooth and nail for this posting. His service in the recent war had ended as an embarrassment for him. When the war started he’d been due to graduate from the High King’s academy in another two moons. The High King himself ordered that everyone in his class would graduate early and go south with the army.

Gryllos had been inordinately proud to be assigned to the Sixth Mounted Rifles, the soldiers who would skirmish ahead of the main force under Captain-General Hestophes, already in Xiphlon.

He’d expected to spend moons of hard pounding in the saddle as they dashed the twelve hundred miles to Xiphlon. A deed of heroes that all men would talk of for years! They’d dashed all right, but less than a hundred miles to the Harphax River. There they found something Gryllos and his fellows had never seen and never heard of before: a steam puller. The puller ran on a road made of iron rails that led south and west. The steam puller hauled wagons that rode easily on the rails.

Once they were in one of the wagons the steam puller pulled, it was literally eye-popping. They rode in the wagons southward at steady pace, far faster than a horse could trot. And, as fast as that was, their horses weren’t tired and the steam puller didn’t tire. In a moon quarter they were in Xiphlon, ready to be ferried across the Great River.

And that’s where the war had ended for Gryllos. Their horses were picketed in the center of the ferry, with walkways running past them, a few feet higher than the horse deck, so they wouldn’t have to wade in horse manure.

Gryllos had been informed of an officer’s call and had started forward.

He barely noticed, not until the last heartbeat. A farrier was working to shoe a horse, a stallion. The horse didn’t like it and tossed its head. The farrier, not wanting to waste time with a balking horse, hit it very hard with a leather crop. The horse bucked and then kicked out with its hind legs.

Gryllos had seen the hoof coming at him at the last instant and he’d twisted and tried to pull back. Instead, the hoof slammed into his chest and knocked him backwards, flipping him over the rail of the barge and into the river. A half dozen brave men went in the water to save him, and they did their duty, because the next conscious thought Gryllos had was in a field hospital back in Xiphlon.

He had four broken ribs and a punctured lung; three days later he developed a fever and nearly died from that, too. He spent four moons recovering enough to be returned to duty, only to find his duty consisted keeping track of replacements headed south for the fighting.

It took another moon and a lucky meeting with one of the Sixth Mounted’s captains to get him back in the war. Except by then, the war was over. He reached the town of Zimapan almost a moon after the High King himself had turned back the last attack.

Gryllos wasn’t sure why the Sixth Mounted Rifles had been assigned to Outpost nearly a year later, but he’d welcomed that change as well. And he’d been thrilled about an independent command thinking that at last things were looking up.

And now this...

He looked up when his signal sergeant entered his tiny office. “You sent for me, Lieutenant?”

“As soon as it’s dark enough for night signals, send four words using the special code. The words ‘no word’ and ‘six hundred.’”

The sergeant laughed, his voice harsh. “Well, they did say the messages in the special code were to be brief, didn’t they?”

“Aye. As soon as you’ve sent the message, don’t wait for a reply. Get yourself and your men ready for extended field duty.”

“Six hundred, eh?” the sergeant said, his tone light.

“Yes. Odds are, we’ll only have to fight four or five hundred of them. We’ll cut loose the horses we don’t need when we leave. Everybody goes along.”

“Some would leave people behind to hold the post,” the sergeant said neutrally.

“I won’t waste good men.”

“Speaking as one good man to another, Lieutenant, that’s very fine news, sir. Very fine!”

He left and Gryllos went and found his junior lieutenant, Smyla, who was talking to the troop sergeant. It only took a few heartbeats to pass on his orders to the sergeant. “Remind the men, triple canteens and to go easy on the water. Remind the herders two or three times and have a steady corporal double check them before we ride.”

The troop sergeant went to pass the word to the soldiers and the civilians, while Gryllos beckoned to Lieutenant Smyla. “I want you to tell the herders to move all the horses to the western corral. Then I want you to take two mortar shells and put them on the gatepost of the eastern corral. Assign two good men to the western gates. Have them put ropes on the gateposts and stand well away. On my command, they’ll swing the gates wide, and the explosions will send the horses running.”

He grinned at Smyla. “And if you do it all right, why, I’ll let you fire the shot that detonates the shells.”

Lieutenant Smyla grinned in pleasure. “Thank you, Senior Lieutenant! I’m glad the time I spent with the Heavy Weapons Company won’t have been wasted!”

Smyla was the son of coal miners in old Nostor. Mining was a dangerous business at best and several years ago Smyla’s father and two younger brothers had vanished in an underground explosion and the cave-in that followed.

“I’m never going to work underground again,” Smyla had told Gryllos. “It’s not for me. I’ll blow things up for you, if you wish. Just don’t ask me to work underground.”

Smyla was a year and half older than Gryllos, but the junior lieutenant didn’t seem to mind at all having someone younger than him in command. As a benefit, Smyla was significantly more mature than most junior lieutenants and the troopers seemed to respect him more than they would most junior lieutenants.

“What about the rest of the armory?” Smyla asked, turning serious. “We have a hundred hundred-pound casks of fireseed, four light mortars and five hundred shells. The mortars will be very useful.”

“Put it all on horses. Tell off most of the herders that they’ll lead those horses; they’re to stay well back from the point. Mention those fireseed casks if they want to crowd forwards towards us.”

“And if some of them take off?”

“The God-King’s soldiers are out there.” Gryllos made a looping motion around his heart with his index finger: signing having your heart cut out. “Our only hope is to stay together. One or two men alone out there will be dead by sunset tomorrow. Or carried away to the south.”

A fate too horrible to contemplate.

The preparations were time consuming, but that just made the time pass more swiftly.

Finally Gryllos nodded to the soldiers on the gates and they pulled them open. The horses were nervous and only a few moved towards the gate, preferring to stay close to the others. Smyla fired a single shot and a fountain of dirt and debris shot skyward. The horses panicked and headed west, the direction Gryllos wanted them to go.

His troop rode out then, helped by a sliver of a moon, as they headed due south.

They traveled the first mile at a gallop, and then slowed as the forage trail petered out. It had been a simple calculation to make for Gryllos. They had six palm widths before they had to be in position. They had to ride west a palm width, thus five palm widths remained. He wasn’t brave enough to go the full two and a half palm widths south, but he did do a bit more than two. Then the palm width west and then the turn to the north.

As dawn approached, they were moving slowly, which suited Gryllos. Leem materialized out of the night just as the moon was about to set, a half palm width before dawn.

The Ruthani grinned. “You fooled them! There were three hundred and fifty waiting five hundred yards west of the post! They thought the explosion was someone inadvertently setting off some mortar ammunition, while trying to set up. They think you’re on to them, and they’re planning on an attack at sunrise, if you haven’t come out.

“North of you are about a hundred and twenty of them. It’s hard to tell how many exactly, because I didn’t have time to go all the way around to check on the northern force. I assume they’ve surrounded the convoy. There are only sixty men between you and the wagons. You can catch the God-King’s soldiers from behind. As soon as you see they are about to fire, you can attack. That will warn the camp; hopefully their captain is competent.”

Gryllos nodded and Leem went forward once again to scout ahead of the column.

Bless Galzar, Gryllos thought, for men like Leem. Even for soldiers like his, some of the best of the Sixth Mounted, most of them veterans of the war, including skirmishing against the God-King’s van for two hundred miles and then taking a half division attack at Three Hills.

And if Galzar was willing, he would uphold that fighting tradition today.

A short time later a junior sergeant was detailed to watch over the civilians and the supplies. The rest of Gryllos’ soldiers formed into a mounted line abreast, just below the crest of a low rise.

“Remember there are friendly soldiers ahead of us,” Gryllos reminded his troopers. “We don’t want to shoot them by mistake, even if they are Zarthani. Don’t take long shots, try to aim low, watch for the waterhole. You’ve all been there, you know where it is and the layout.”

They stood still then, three hundred yards behind the closest of the God-King’s soldiers, or so Leem had said. Steady as any soldiers ever, waiting for the light to grow around them.

Ahead of them came a single shot, followed a few heartbeats later by another, more distant. Then came a thunderous volley of a hundred or more shots, capped by screams of horses.

Gryllos waved at his bugler and the man blew the charge. The best of all possible worlds: charging an enemy who had all emptied their rifles. There’d be a few men with pistols, but not many.

And the Sixth Mounted were veteran skirmishers. Any man who tried to raise a pistol against them was going to be shot before he was set.

It was over in a fraction of a finger width. The odds had been even on this side of the convoy and the God-King’s soldier’s guns were empty. The attack on their rear was brutally short. But, as fast as they were, the captain who commanded the convoy was just as fast. He pulled some of his soldiers from the southern flank and reinforced the north side, just as the God-King’s soldiers rose to attack.

Inexplicably, at least to Gryllos, the God-King’s soldiers fired another volley. He’d grinned, waited out the Zarthani counter volley, and then ordered another charge. Again, they caught the God-King’s men in the open as they were charging towards the Zarthani convoy. They wilted at the volley from the defenders, and then were crushed when the Sixth Mounted rode over them.

Without stopping, Gryllos turned to the troop sergeant. “Have the others come forward at once.”

The sergeant saluted and went galloping back through the Zarthani camp. Gryllos couldn’t complain: none of the Zarthani took a shot at the sergeant, which Gryllos had expected.

A man in a plain leather jerkin strode forward. “I’m Captain Landsruhl, the Army of Zarthan. Are you the captain of these men?”

“Senior Lieutenant Gryllos,” he replied. “Sixth Mounted Rifles.”

“Well, lieutenant or captain, that was most prettily done! They’ve killed many of our horses, shot holes in many of our water barrels. Still, if we combine mounts, we should be able to reach the remount post ahead.”

“Captain, I commanded the remount post. This is all of us, sir. We abandoned it. There are three times as many of the God-King’s soldiers between us and it, lying in ambush.”

The captain looked flummoxed. “You abandoned your post?”

“Captain, could we move to one side?” Gryllos asked the Zarthani carefully. He wasn’t sure how much the other knew, and he wasn’t sure how the captain would react to the orders Gryllos had.

They moved a short distance away from curious ears. “Captain, are you a noble?” Gryllos asked.

“No, just a captain in the army. During the war I was guarding our northern border against the Ruthani.”

“Nor am I, sir. Sir, can you tell me about two of your people? A Corporal Trilium and a private named Noius?”

The Zarthani looked puzzled. “What do you want with them?” He looked at the camp and saw what he needed to see. Then he saw the old sergeant draw his finger across his throat followed by a headshake, then thumped his shoulder and held up one finger.

Gryllos grinned, while the captain whispered in shock, “Great Galzar! We have only one man wounded!”

“That corporal and the private?” Gryllos reminded Landsruhl.

The captain turned to Gryllos. “I heard tales from the war, Lieutenant. I thought they were stories made up to explain away the failings of incompetent officers.”

Landsruhl stiffened and spoke carefully. “Yesterday, had you asked me, I’d have told you that Trilium is a known troublemaker, forever stating his opinion, usually bad, of nobles, officers and sergeants. Noius is a new soldier. He’s competent enough, but inexperienced. Or so I thought.”

He looked at Gryllos, with dread clearly written on his face. “Why do you ask?”

“Count Errock ordered me that I was to sacrifice my command to keep them safe and that if I had to choose, Noius should live and the rest of us should die.”

Gryllos watched the Zarthani’s throat work. It looked, Gryllos thought, very much like the man was afraid, instead of angry as Gryllos had expected.

Captain Landsruhl sighed. “As I said, Trilium is a known troublemaker. Corporal or not, I’ve made his life less than pleasant. And since my general told me to my face that Noius was with him, what I visited upon Trilium’s head, I visited on the private’s.”

“All I know is that Count Errock has dispatched Brigadier Markos and the Sixth Mounted to our relief. They were near Mogdai, yesterday. Tomorrow, I expect, probably by mid-afternoon, they’ll be here. I don’t care how many of the God-King’s soldiers are out there, they’ll either start running now, or they’ll die tomorrow or the next day.”

“Lieutenant, this morning it was Noius, walking outer picket, who noticed the night had gone quiet. It was Noius who saw one of them crouching behind a bush and passed the word. It was Corporal Trilium and my senior sergeant who killed the first of them, as they tried to sneak in and kill the sentries. Those were the first two shots.”

Abruptly, Gryllos realized what was bothering Captain Landsruhl. He’d been assigning extra duty to this Trilium and Noius. Now he found that Count Errock was personally interested in the pair. Worse, evidently they had seen the attack coming. Which suggested that they weren’t an ordinary corporal or an ordinary private–and the captain was realizing it.

“Captain,” Gryllos said carefully, “I cannot order you. But I would strongly suggest that you find a safe place for those two to sit out the next day or so. Now, sir, after that, we need to prepare to defend ourselves, so that when my brigadier arrives tomorrow there are some of us left for him to rescue.”


	6. Savoring Victories

I

“Uh oh,” Trilium whispered to Noia.

Noia turned and followed his gaze. Captain Landsruhl was talking with one of the Hostigi soldiers; probably their commander. Captain Landsruhl looked upset and he was staring at Noia and Trilium.

“Come along, Noius,” Trilium said. “I think that Hostigi officer has heard of you.”

They’d gone only a few steps when Herculium stopped Trilium. “Look, I know we owe you; I swear I’ll tell the captain myself. But this isn’t the time for that.”

Captain Landsruhl was gesturing at them. Noia felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. He was gesturing at her, not Trilium.

Trilium grinned at the sergeant. “Not to worry, the captain already promised us we were done with all that.”

The two of them walked towards the two men, both obviously officers.

Sergeant Herculium trailed along behind them, stopping a few steps behind Trilium.

“Corporal, private,” Captain Landsruhl greeted them. “As I said yesterday, your extra guard tours are over. You did your duty and then some.”

“You wanted to talk to us, sir?” Trilium said, virtually ignoring the captain’s first words.

“Corporal, you and trooper Noius will go to the area where the wagons are. You are to direct the drovers to unload the wagons and tip them on their sides. I want a maze barricade, do you understand? They should use the wagons, boxes and bales to further protect the fighting positions.”

“Yes, sir,” Trilium responded.

The Hostigi lieutenant grinned. “That sounds ideal, Captain! Did I mention I brought four mortars with me? That will be a perfect place to set them up!”

Trilium coughed. “If, after we’re set, Lieutenant, if I could take a look at your mortars...?”

“Of course, Corporal, no problem! It’s not like the God-King doesn’t know all about them!” Everyone laughed at that.

There was a buzz of interest among the men as a Ruthani appeared among the Hostigi, headed for their lieutenant. Every eye in camp, including the Hostigi soldiers, followed him.

Noia was astounded. The man was taller than most men, with many sets of lion fangs in necklaces around his neck, and his face was painted in a frightening mask.

“We need,” Trilium said to Noia, reminding her, “to get to work.”

Trilium told men what to do, and there was a lot of grumbling, in spite of the fact that less than a palm width before they had been in peril of their lives.

Herculium appeared and ended the argument. “Trilium is now Senior Sergeant Trilium and it’s Corporal Noius. Do as you are told! Do it now!”

To say the sergeant was a credible threat understated his effect.

Two finger widths passed and two Hostigi officers and the Ruthani joined them behind the wagon barrier as it was still under construction.

“Sergeant, this is junior Lieutenant Smyla. Please, he’ll describe what we need to set up the mortars,” the senior Hostigi officer told Trilium.

“Sir!” Trilium replied with alacrity.

Noia couldn’t help be fascinated by the Ruthani. In the north, men like this had become the worst fear of the people who lived there. Lieutenant Gryllos bobbed his head in Noia’s direction.

“This is Sergeant Leem, Corporal Noius. We tried to give the Ruthani ranks in the war, but it didn’t work very well. Instead, they have someone they call their ‘paramount war chief’ who leads all their fighting men. Then there are the ‘chiefs’ mostly like our captains, who lead bands of men. Last are the ‘sub-chiefs’ who do the bidding of those more senior. So, while Leem is a sergeant of Hostigos, he’s more like a colonel among the Ruthani. It can be confusing.

“And then there’s the fact his foster sister is the paramount war chief of the Ruthani.”

“His sister?” Trilium exclaimed in surprise.

“Aye. Tanda Havra, Kills-from-Behind, wife to the Duke of Mexico, Lord Tuck.”

The Ruthani laughed. “You left out my august father, Lieutenant.”

“True, but that’s because even I have trouble believing the stories. Leem’s father was the most famous warrior of the Ruthani, even before he died killing the God-King. He was the Lion of the Ruthani.”

Noia sucked air. Everyone had heard of the four men who faced the God-King, looked him in the eye and had then struck him down.

“Sergeant,” Lieutenant Gryllos said, “much as I’d like to trade war stories, right now I’d like to get set against our enemies. They only have a few miles to ride and if they’re in a hurry, and I suspect they will be, we don’t have much time.”

In fact, they had less than a palm width before a volley of shots hammered the eastern end of the camp. Everyone was under cover and the volley had no effect. For Noia, it was her first experience in sustained combat. She could hear bullets thudding into the wagon bed she was sheltering behind; she could hear the occasional bullet sing overhead.

Shortly, wounded began to flow in and Noia heard that fifty of the God-King’s soldiers had launched an attack from the east.

A few finger widths later twice that number attacked from the north. The battle was hot, with rifles firing continuously. The mortars fired a lot of shots as well. As fascinated as Noia was with how that worked, the bullets slamming into the wagon beds surrounding them came to haunt her. The only reason it wasn’t worse was that there were now dozens of wounded and some dead, laid out in a small group away from the rest.

Noia tended the wounded without a word, doing what she could. For many, nothing helped.

There was a surprise. Captain Landsruhl appeared, and walked up to Lieutenant Smyla, who was directing the mortars. “I’ve heard, Lieutenant, that you wish you could be in the fight,” Landsruhl told the lieutenant.

“I don’t think that skulking in safety is what I could do best.”

“Your mortars broke their attack from the south, before they could launch it. That attack would have been as large as the first two combined. You saved us all, Lieutenant. At these guns you are worth a hundred men!”

A moment later the captain dropped down next to Noia. “Corporal, the casualty count?”

“Sixteen dead, thirty-one sorely wounded, Captain. It’s not so easy to tell if they are ours or Hostigi.”

“The enemy are two to our one. It will be a Miracle of Galzar if we can hold out to tomorrow. Still, we are killing, three, four and five of them to one of us. It may work.”

“I would like to help on the line, sir.”

Captain Landsruhl touched her hand. Not tenderly, but in a brotherly fashion. “Corporal, in my first battle as a captain my senior sergeant knocked me to the ground and demanded to know why I was in front of my company. ‘The better to lead them,’ I told him. ‘You can’t lead us dead!’ he exclaimed. I was chagrined, Corporal, for it was what I’d heard a thousand times. A heartbeat later he died, a Ruthani bullet through his head. He died two steps in front of me.

“I could have gone crazy, for the man was my friend and mentor. Instead, I retired to a relatively safe spot and gave over to hell the bastards attacking us, as was my duty. We all have our duties, Corporal. I have mine and you have yours. I can find fault with how I’ve done mine since we left Baytown–I can’t find any fault with how you’ve done yours. Stay down, stay safe.”

Then he was up, checking with someone else, and again went into the maelstrom.

The firing died away after High Sun. Trilium returned and sank down next to Noia, breathing heavily. “Now they know the serious downside of pinning the other side to the waterhole–they can’t get to it.”

“How goes it?”

“A third of us are dead or wounded,” Trilium said bluntly. “However both the drovers and the Hostigi horse herders have learned quickly. Now I know how Lord Tuck taught the Mexicotál to be proper soldiers so fast! People were shooting at them!”

She dozed off for a bit, and then woke up when another man was brought for bandages. It was Leem, the Ruthani. The wound was nothing but a score along his left arm. She had learned plenty during the day about how to treat such wounds, so it was no trouble to clean the injury.

She placed the bandage and wound it tight, to stop the bleeding. Leem grunted. “Thank you, Noius.” He worked his left arm. “I do not think this will hinder me.”

“How did you know my name?” she whispered.

He grinned. “Lieutenant Gryllos is a good officer, Corporal, and he tells me all that he should and nothing more. All I know is that we are to keep you safe.”

She nodded, not sure how much he knew, how much his officer knew, and not wanting to ask him.

He worked his arm and grinned. “I have a favor to ask of you, Corporal.”

“What?”

“I have a wife, many sisters and brothers and fourteen mothers. The women all start to weep if any of us are so much as scratched. The men paint their faces and swear blood vengeance. Please, shortly one of my brothers will join us. Say nothing to him about this,” he gestured at the bandage.

Noia nearly choked. “You have fourteen mothers?”

“Aye, my father was a very–dynamic–man. Know too, that there are a dozen of my stepmothers who died in childbirth. I have many brothers and sisters, not counting the duke’s wife, whom my father adopted, plus dozens of cousins, nieces and nephews. Many of my sisters have daughters husband-high.”

She nodded, not knowing what to say. Finally, she pointed to the bandage. “He’ll see that.”

Leem laughed. “In a palm width the bandage will fall off. I’ve learned the High King’s lessons on how to treat wounds. After another palm width I’ll wash it with wine. It’ll look like a scratch. It is a scratch.”

“You think help will be here soon?” Noia focused on that.

“The Hostigi are coming very fast...for your sort of soldiers. They will be here before High Sun, tomorrow. I promise you: my people will be here long before the sun rises tomorrow. And when they reach here these men of the God-King will die. Every last one of them. No matter what happens to us.”

He left then, after a spate of shooting. There wasn’t much shooting anymore, and the men were saying that the God-King’s soldiers were sniping at anyone who showed themselves. The soldiers thought it was a joke, because they were sticking hats out on sticks. They even made a dummy, stuffed with grass from the waterhole and used a pole to shove it out into the open.

When the God-King’s soldiers shot at the false targets, real marksman would shoot them dead. The firing had slowed to almost nothing.

Noia looked up at the vault of the sky. It was already mid-afternoon, the sun was moving steadily towards the horizon. It looked like they might just survive, after all! She laughed then, thinking of the queen. These men with her still wouldn’t qualify for her sisterhood. They’d crouched at this waterhole since the previous evening. No running! Lots of danger, lots of death, but no running!

When the sun was nearly at the horizon, Trilium returned. “The Ruthani says his people will be here a palm width after sunset. Captain Landsruhl thinks the God-King’s soldiers have already withdrawn, except for a few.”

“They aren’t firing very often,” Noia observed.

“There’s no way to tell if they’re trying to lull us into a mistake. The only way to be sure would be to sortie, but if they’re out there, lying in wait, a sortie would be a disaster. So, we stay in place, waiting for the Ruthani to come. I have an idea that any of the God-King’s soldiers still here then will die before dawn.”

It was a little after the sun was fully gone from the sky, and Noia was changing a bandage when the Ruthani swept through camp. There was a low murmur of voices, then silence. A few moments later Leem was back, with a huge hulk of a man in tow. “This is my brother. I have asked him to watch over you.”

Trilium appeared, as if springing from nowhere. “I do that!”

The huge man shifted his stance slightly, and then Trilium flew through the air. The big man laughed. “I am Tanda Sa! That means, kills from where ever I damn well please!”

He started towards Trilium again and Noia spilled him over her leg. He was cat-quick coming up and she rolled backwards, her foot in his belly, tossing him through the air, to land on his back, knocking the wind from his body.

“Enough!” Leem roared. “Be still, brother!”

Everyone stopped. The big man picked himself up gingerly from the ground, his eyes intent on Noia.

“Tanda Sa, turn around and walk to the well. Wash up.”

“Wash up?” the man-mountain demanded. “I haven’t spilled blood yet, he has,” he waved at Noia. “Soon, brother, someone else will need to wash off the blood.”

“Calm down, brother!” Leem commanded. Noia lifted an eyebrow. While Leem looked fearsome, he didn’t hold but a small candle to his brother, even if his face wasn’t painted and he wasn’t wearing necklaces of teeth.

Tanda Sa looked at his brother, his face clouded with anger.

Leem smiled. “Tanda Sa, remember your manners! You’re not home now! If you don’t behave, I’ll ask Corporal Noius to protect you!”

Tanda Sa looked at Noia, and then shrugged. “Sorry, brother, I wasn’t thinking. I was saving that for going east to the High King’s University.”

“Brother, our father told us many times how important practice was. You don’t save practice for later.”

Tanda Sa bobbed his head, and then turned to Noia. “You knocked me down. You threw me.”

Noia nodded, deciding on the spur of the moment, that to tell him his anger distracted him would be a bad idea.

Tanda Sa turned to Trilium. “I did not mean that I could do the job better than you, sir. I just thought that now and then, one of us could sleep.”

Trilium looked at Noia who could only shrug. “At least as far as Outpost,” Trilium said grudgingly.

Tanda Sa grinned. “The elders of the Ruthani have decided to send someone east to see what sort of education the High King offers. They picked me. You would think they would never ask that of someone not smart enough to think of a reason to stay home.

“So, as far as Outpost, and then I’ll be going on east.”

Noia wondered just how many people now in camp knew who she was, where she was going and why. She didn’t think it very wise that the number had risen above two. Well, she hadn’t said anything and she was sure that Trilium hadn’t either.

Tanda Sa smiled at Noia. “Corporal, there is one thing I would ask.”

“What?” she asked, cautiously.

“What you did just now, that was on purpose, yes? Both times?”

“It was, yes,” she told him.

“Could you show me how you did those things? Knock me down, and then throw me through the air? I would have wagered someone your size couldn’t lift me, much less throw me!”

Noia was nonplussed. The man was huge! She’d used a simple throw the older women taught the younger women to dissuade over-amorous suitors. It didn’t matter how big the man was.

“Even if I learned what I know from a woman old enough to be your mother? It’s used to discourage men who have more desire than brains.”

“Corporal, all I know was that I was intent on one thing, and suddenly I was on the ground. Then I turned, meaning to make you pay, and I was flying through the air again. I don’t care who teaches me something like that! I’m like my adopted sister and her husband! I don’t like to fight fair! I like to take any and every advantage I can!”

The discussion was interrupted when two priests of Galzar appeared from the night. Noia found it was she who explained the wounds to them. More soldiers were commanded to assist them, and the oldest priest bowed to her. “You have done well, Corporal. Please, rest now. Tomorrow, I would be pleased if you could once again help.”

The priests of Dralm and Galzar were still a painful and confusing subject to think about. One day the priests of those gods had been the wisest, the most respected of all priests in the land. If a disaster happened, Dralm, Galzar or his priests provided. Then the priests of Styphon had come in great numbers to Zarthan and the priests of the True Gods became the “Maximum Enemies” to be killed on sight.

Most of the serfs and slaves ignored the proscriptions of Styphon. The soldiers had been contemptuous, and they too had kept their reverence for Galzar, no matter what the priests of Styphon commanded. The common people had never wavered in their beliefs about Dralm, Yirrta and the other gods.

The priests of the True Gods had fought back against those who would destroy them and while the damage had been to Styphon alone, the priests of Styphon claimed it hurt everyone.

Then came the word that the priests of Styphon had poisoned the king and overnight there were no priests of Styphon, any place in the realm. Noia didn’t know if Styphon’s priests had expected to buy loyalty, but none of it had been on offer.

Trilium led her to one of wagons lying on its side and bade her rest. Noia didn’t need any prompting; she leaned back and was asleep at once.

II

As proud as Gryllos had been in the morning, the afternoon sapped that. The God-King’s soldiers appeared within a palm width, then quickly extended their lines until they were all around the waterhole. Firing continued, heavy at times, almost continuously.

There was no enemy to charge. The God-King’s soldiers had targeted the surviving horses and any barrel that looked like it could contain water. It was a steady, grinding battle where a lot of good men died. Three times the God-King’s soldiers assembled attacks and rushed the defenders; three times it was Lieutenant Smyla’s mortars that made the difference.

The God-King’s soldiers might have attacked three times, but there weren’t enough of them to make truly strong attacks and the mortars killed dozens of them as they tried to cross the open ground around the waterhole.

At the peak of the afternoon’s heat, the combat slowed to a few snipers shooting at anything or anyone that moved. The men, Hostigi and Zarthani, had taken to waving hats on sticks, even making a straw dummy and pushing it out from cover with a board to draw shots.

When the God-King’s soldiers would fire the men would laugh uproariously and call out japes and epithets if they couldn’t see the sniper. If they could see him a fusillade of shots made the sniper’s life hazardous.

At first the whole behavior struck Gryllos as rather unseemly, but the fact remained that it slowed the sniping, as their enemies had to take extra time to decide if they were being fooled or not and extra care to make sure that they weren’t exposed. That, and it was mixed groups of the Sixth Mounted and their Zarthani counterparts who were engaged in it, working together. Another miracle of Galzar’s, Gryllos was sure.

Leem beckoned to Gryllos late in the afternoon and Gryllos grimaced. Leem was standing next to the Zarthani commander, so he had to go. He threw dignity to the wind and then fanned that wind as he ran as fast as he could run.

He fetched up not only safe, but also not having been shot at.

Leem grinned at him. “Lieutenant, I believe they have withdrawn. There were only one or two snipers left and they weren’t shooting at targets–just an occasional shot to make us think they are still there. It is possible that even they have left.”

“Which isn’t to say that someone wouldn’t shoot you if they saw you,” Captain Landsruhl said with a laugh.

Gryllos could understand the laugh. They were going to live! Well, most of them were going to live. Maybe thirty were dead, and another fifty wounded. Some of the wounded were certain to die, but the rest of them would live! “And the corporal and the private?”

“I promoted them. Your lieutenant on the mortars allowed Sergeant Trilium to watch and help run ammunition. Corporal Noius assisted ably with the wounded.”

Gryllos sighed with relief. He had considered his orders when he’d first gotten them. First with disbelief, then resignation. He dared not tell anyone about them, and even now he felt regret he’d had to reveal so much to Captain Landsruhl. Worse, it was clear the good captain hadn’t had any such orders himself. Still, Gryllos had his duty and so far, he’d done it.

By nightfall they were in much better shape. Most of the men had some rest, they’d passed out jerky and extra water for dinner and everyone had liked that. Of course, being soldiers they grumbled because it was water and not wine, but a lot of wine barrels had been shot during the day.

Later, Leem found him. Gryllos nodded at the scab on his friend’s arm.

“A lucky shot. Of course the man who fired it was dead a heartbeat later–if you want to call that lucky.”

Gryllos waved around them. “Are they truly gone?”

“Yes, sir. I’m pretty sure they knew that they had to leave when they did or my brothers would have gotten between them and safety. I expect to see my little brother shortly after the sun goes down.”

Not much later Gryllos went to see to his wounded. There wasn’t much he could say or do but offer words of encouragement, sometimes extravagant. He rested for a few moments, watching Noius help a man to drink.

The new corporal looked up and met his eyes. He set the water dipper down and stalked over to Gryllos. “Why am I being sheltered?” he asked.

Gryllos shrugged. “Those are my orders, Corporal,” he said levelly. There was no one close enough to overhear them, but still he kept his voice low.

“One of your soldiers, moments from death, exulted that he fought for the High King, Brigadier Markos and Lieutenant Gryllos.”

Gryllos bowed his head. “My men know their duty.”

“And tell me, Lieutenant-who-knows-his-duty–what would you think if your brigadier commanded you to cower in cover and help the wounded, because he didn’t want you hurt? What would you do? Obey?”

Gryllos mentally took a step back. That sort of question went against everything he’d ever learned, against everything that he believed.

“I’m not that important! But no matter what my personal feelings are, I do as commanded.”

“You would not believe, Lieutenant, how far I’ve had to run to stay alive. How many times I’ve had to hide. The next time a battle comes, you think about your duty and what you will do when you get an unpalatable order whose sole purpose is to keep you safe, letting others die in your place.”

Before Gryllos could answer there was a flurry of excitement; Ruthani scouts were coming into the camp. Gryllos put the words of the young corporal deep inside himself, burying them for another day. He’d had his duty and he’d done it as well as he knew how. He was content with that. Yet...the corporal’s words obviously came from the heart.

He wasn’t important and he doubted if he’d ever get an order like the one he’d given to the Zarthani private. Truth? The truth was that if someone told Gryllos to hide from battle, he’d laugh and do his duty as he saw fit. But what if it was the High King, personally, giving the order? Or Brigadier Markos? He didn’t have an easy answer for those questions at all.

III

The Countess of Tecpan leaned back in her chair and sighed. She yawned and stretched, even though it wasn’t High Sun yet. Of course, she’d been at this table piled high with documents since first light.

She leaned back up in the chair, and then grinned as it moved. A chair that rocked–what a clear example of the difference between home and here! When she’d described it, the first master carpenter she had spoken to shook his head and told her he’d make no such thing, chairs were supposed to sit firmly on the floor.

Judy had agreed and described a base that sat firmly on the floor, but a seat free to move, but the man would have none of it.

The second master woodworker had listened to her describe it and a moon quarter later presented the chair to her. She’d sat down in it, leaned back–and woke up a finger width later with her ears still ringing from the blow to the back of her head. Gamelin had nearly had the carpenter’s head off...he’d not been far away and the word had reached him before she was conscious again.

That master had learned an important lesson, one that he should have learned earlier: never give something to high-ranking nobleman–or woman–that you haven’t tried out personally, first.

In a way, it was a good thing, because it allowed Judy to work with the master for another moon quarter and the result was far better and didn’t tip over. Then Judy had explained a granny rocker to him and he’d made one of those too and made sure it worked right.

Judy hadn’t been surprised by how popular the classic rocking chair became, as overnight the master was deluged with requests for them from hundreds of women in Mexico, particularly the pregnant ones. Judy had him send one as a gift to Lady Linnea, Count Errock’s wife and another to Queen Elspeth of Zarthan.

The master carpenter had quailed at the cost of shipping those chairs and nearly didn’t. Judy had solved that problem elegantly. She found out how much the chairs cost to ship, she added in what her three times her own granny rocker had cost and piled the gold Kalvans on the man’s workbench, then matched it again.

“There,” she said. “Twice what it will cost you to do as I have suggested. A wager, master! A fair wager. I will place this pile of gold in the charge of the Alcalde! You, master, will place each Kalvan you receive in orders from Hostigos or Zarthan in his care as well, in a pile separate from the one I gave. Since I’m the one risking the money, twelve moons after Queen Elspeth receives her chair, the two of us will meet with the Alcalde and I will take the stack of gold you have given the Alcalde and you can have the one I gave him.”

“I don’t understand, highness,” he’d told her.

“It’s simple. You will double your gold from the stack I give to the Alcalde. I will make what I make, based on how popular the chairs are. I’m wagering my stack will be significantly larger than the one I put at risk.”

The master understood then. She could see his eyes calculating, and then he grinned. “It would do no harm to have a count and a queen sample my wares!”

He was silent for a few moments, and then sighed. “They will simply have one of their own craftsmen, of which they have many, copy the design.”

Judy inclined her head. “Let me talk to the duke. You are right. Where I am from we had an arrangement with the crown where that couldn’t be done; a special license from the king himself to be the sole person who profits from a design.”

He’d bowed and left.

Judy leaned forward and made a note on her “To Do” list about patent reform. As if reading her mind, Lydia came in and sat down.

“I can’t believe you’re already in a rocker, Judy!”

Judy grinned at her friend. “It’s not as bad as you think. It’s comfortable and lets me work off some of my nervous energy.”

She waved to the soldier that stood just inside her door. “Leave us. Close the door behind you, please.”

He nodded and left, closing the door.

Lydia turned to Judy. “I hope he’s to be trusted.”

Judy’s smile was wintery. “He’s a Tarr-Dombra veteran. If we didn’t trust each other, we would both be dead.”

Lydia looked at the door to Judy’s private workroom, and the lightly gilded shovel mounted over the door that led to it. Some men mounted spears, swords or even fireseed weapons that had special meaning to them. Judy Bondi had a shovel. Lydia could never be sure if Judy was telling the truth about not being able to remember much of the battle.

But she wasn’t the only survivor, not by a dozen and a half. Sixty or seventy men, some said, she’d killed with that shovel. Some men said more and none said less. Lydia shivered and returned her eyes to Judy.

“The introduction of spirits to our weekly meeting of the Women’s Council has, ah, loosened a great many tongues,” Lydia told her friend. “Those of us on the executive council are careful to partake of well-watered wine and not the fiery stuff the Kumiai sisters have been making.”

“Anything to report?”

“There is some of the usual grumbling from husbands who aren’t used to having a wife with economic clout. One husband over in the northern quarter clouted his wife in the traditional fashion and she told us. Kumiai the elder went to the town guard and wanted to know why they hadn’t done anything. Their commander told her that they couldn’t do anything about a man hitting his wife else their jails would be filled to overflowing. She cut off the City Guard’s tavern from the good stuff. Two days later, the husband was arrested. Evidently, he had fallen down several times on the way to the jail. The judge fined him and when the man’s wife wouldn’t pay the fine, sentenced him to a moon of Sundays working for the town.”

“And the city watch who beat him?”

“Kumiai the elder kept their tavern dry another moon quarter.”

Judy shook her head in wonder. “Do you really think we’re making a difference?”

“Oh yes, Judy! You have no idea! No one is fond of having their ox gored! Between cutting off the booze and the Lysistrata tactic, there’s a very quiet revolution underway.”

“It’s bizarre,” Judy mused. “At home we would be sophomores in high school. We might have to read a Greek play for English, but not that one. Here, you told me the story and we’re using it in a clandestine war to bring power to the women of the Mexicotál. I’m a countess and you’re my head spy.”

“And we’re both pretty good at what we do,” Lydia exclaimed, grinning. “A spy and a revolutionary combined!” She nodded at Judy. “Still, it’s a funny kind of spying, where most of the information goes from us to them, instead of the other way around.”

“Just remember that you are my ear to the ground. It can’t be completely one-way.”

Lydia grinned. “I won’t forget! Besides, I’m getting pointers from Elspeth, and I’ve given her a few, too.”

“I hope you’re really careful with those messages,” Judy cautioned.

“We use a special paper,” Lydia said with a grin. “Did you know that if you use white wine for ink, let it dry and set for a few days, that if you later run the paper over a candle, the wine letters show up? And then there’s another code and another under that. I gave you a write-up on it, you remember?”

“And Gamelin knows where it is hidden and I know where it’s hidden, and both of us know how to read it. No, I haven’t read it.”

“So, I think we’re covered. We keep track of our messages and all have arrived safely and unread.”

“Well, we still have nearly a year before the election. We need to do some more outreach into the community, get more women involved in the economy.“

“It’s taking off, Judy, it’s truly remarkable.”

“I’ve been concerned; it’s been a while since you came to me for more money.”

Lydia laughed. “Oh, Judy! You should see it! We’re making money hand over fist! I sent some to Tanda Havra in Xipototec, ‘cause we were getting too much here. She needs someone like me there.”

“What about those noble ladies from Tenosh?”

Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t trust them, Judy! Their story is all wrong! Tanda Havra has men watching them all the time! Lion’s family is going to send her someone soon.”

“It can’t be soon enough,” Judy told her.

Lydia nodded. She could read what Judy was thinking easily enough. The battle that won Judy fame and a title had cost the lives of two women, either of whom would have been perfect for the job of helping Tanda in Xipototec. Tazi of Mogdai and Zokala of Xipototec. It wasn’t far off the mark to say that Judy had greatly admired both, loved them and grieved for them. And while the vengeance she’d extracted from her enemies that day had been terrible to behold, she wasn’t content.

IV

Puma walked through the open gates of the town, her eyes watching everything around her. She’d been to Outpost twice, but this town with the strange, alien name was considerably larger than Outpost. Ten times larger, her half-blood brother had told her.

The people of the Lost Ruthani were different than those from the lands of the High King. There a girl bare from the waist up came in for considerable scrutiny, at least parts of her did. Her full-blood brother had told her that she would have to learn not to take offense at the rudeness of others. Well, she could do that!

But here in this town, many of the men and women were dressed much as she was, and no one gave her a second glance. She walked a few feet to one side of the busy road, the shaded side, and leaned back with one foot cocked under her, to watch the people passing in and out of the city.

Her full-blood brother had been blunt. “You are a pain, little girl! That said, you are brave enough! I have been attacked by one of the great cats and survived because I put a bullet into it as it leaped. It knocked me flat, taking my breath away. If it hadn’t been dead, I’d be dead–it’s as simple as that. To go looking for them...” He shook his head. “Our father was braver than any ten men, but he is dead now. Think on that.”

“A great cat did not kill our father! He faced the greatest enemy of the Ruthani bravely and then killed him.”

“Puma, our father killed the great cats by mostly lying in ambush for them. It’s true our father faced our greatest enemy, looked him in the eye and then killed him–because he was pretending to be a slave, offering up the secrets of the High King. Do you understand that it’s hard to find the honor in killing an unsuspecting man? Along with his children and grandchildren and hundreds of others?”

She’d lifted her chin, broke wind and stalked away. Four times she’d faced the great cats. The first time had been an accident. The cat had appeared from nowhere and landed on the rear of her favorite horse, while she was riding it. The horse had screamed and bucked, kicking hard. Those actions had sent Puma flying free, and had momentarily stunned the cat. Puma had been just three feet from it, when it staggered to its feet. She’d leaped and slashed its throat with her knife.

The horse had run to the village and the men had assembled and ran swiftly to try to kill the cat that they were sure had killed her. They found her sitting cross-legged in front of the dead cat, covered with blood and flies, patiently prying yet another of the lion’s fangs from its mouth.

They’d made a big fuss, of course. Everyone knew who her father was and men made many jests about how she was a born warrior and all of that. She could see the lie in their faces. They thought she’d just been lucky. That, and the cat had been a female, not as large as a male.

She’d bathed, put the necklace of lion teeth around her neck and went hunting. Three days later she was back, covered with blood again and even more fangs, much larger than the first ones. Twice since then, on the day her mother swore was her birthday, Puma would go into the mountains and return with more fangs. Once might have been an accident, but how did those little old men describe four such events?

She sneered, here and now. They didn’t talk about it. They made fun of her for coming back messy; they made fun of how the fangs completely obscured her breasts. “You look like a boy!” she’d heard a thousand times.

Well, the last few moons had ended that, too. She’d grown two hands taller, and more importantly, filled out other places as well.

One of her half-blood sisters had told her that she should go to Tanda Havra, in far-off in Xipototec, in the lands once ruled by the God-King. There, she was told, she would find someone who would appreciate a girl like her.

Who hadn’t heard the stories about Tanda Havra? No one! Every last one of the Lost Ruthani knew all of her stories. Every last one of the Lost Ruthani knew the names of those she had commanded and the names of those who had disobeyed Lord Tuck and his wife.

It had been a mild surprise to find she had a no-blood sister, because her father was notable for not only killing lions, but for taking brides. Everyone laughed at Tanda Havra at first, saying that her father had finally gotten old, preferring comely daughters to demanding wives.

Then Tanda Havra and her husband killed the God-King’s soldiers in windrows and then her father had killed the God-King and the God-King’s son and grandsons and the laughter stopped. Not that it had improved Puma’s lot any!

So, now she was here. Her first impression was that there were entirely too many people in this place. But, there was the fact that none of the men stopped to look at her breasts.

As if to show how fragile that thought was, a soldier, carrying a rifle slung over his back stopped in front of her. He looked her up and down, his eyes focused on her breasts. At least, that was her first thought. Then she realized he was looking at her fang necklace, not her breasts.

He was just barely taller than she was, and nearly as wide as he was tall.

“I heard of a man who wore a necklace like that once,” the soldier told her. “Please, may I?” he gestured at the necklace, obviously wanting to touch it.

“Touch the claws and live,” she said roughly. “Touch what’s underneath and scream like a gelded horse–because you will be gelded.”

He chuckled and ran his fingers over the fangs. Then he let the necklace fall and put his hand back down by his side. Puma couldn’t fault his manners, because after touching the necklace he looked into her eyes.

“I don’t know about the Ruthani–my brother and I were brought up in the live oak country southwest of Xiphlon. Making a brag like this, without it being true...”

“Was the man you knew named Lion? Called the Lion of the Ruthani?”

The soldier nodded.

“He is my father.”

He waved ahead of her, down the dusty road, towards where people were going and coming from. “In that direction is someone you should meet.”

“My no-blood sister?” Puma snarled.

“In that sense, all the women you see are your no-blood sisters. Do you know what will happen to them if the God-King or the new bastard that rules in Tenosh comes here?”

“They die. We all die.”

“We will all die in our time; it’s the time and manner of our passing that matters. If the God-King comes they will pass in ways indescribable. Your father and his adopted daughter fought to prevent that. Your no-blood sister, even unto all those you see here on the street, fight in their own way.”

“I wish a job. Even if it’s running with my sister’s scouts.”

“Even? It is the goal of most of the Lost Ruthani these days to run with Tanda Havra’s scouts. Why, some of them want it so bad, they actually do as they are commanded!”

Puma lapsed into silence and the man smiled. “Ah, a traditionalist!” he exclaimed.

She made a rude gesture at him and he laughed.

“You have a choice to make now. Fall in next to me and walk with me to see the duke. Or turn around and go home.”

“And if I talk to this duke, will people respect me?” She let the fangs dribble through her fingers. “These haven’t brought me anything but scorn.”

“I can promise that if you talk to the duke, he will listen. I can promise you that if you talk politely to his wife, she will listen. I can also promise you that if you turn and walk away, only the wind will listen to you, and it will treat your words no differently than it treats farts and belches.”

Puma had to laugh. “You look at things different than most!” she told him.

“If you think I’m different, you’re going to love my brother! Now, if you would, I’m supposed to be up to the palace to report. Come or go as you will.” He turned and started walking. Puma fell into step next to him.

He walked steadily through the busy streets and finally entered a wide square. There was a large building directly across from where they entered and in the center of the square, a huge fountain, thronged with hundreds, perhaps a thousand women, all talking and gesticulating.

The man with her made a turn and walked diagonally across the square, stopping before a dozen craftsmen working carefully on a black stone statue of what was clearly a young woman.

He gestured at the statue and spoke to Puma.

“That is Zokala, girl of Xipototec. Her father was a minor officer in the army of the God-King, so technically she wasn’t really a typical girl of the town as she was exempt from sacrifice. Yet, the people of Xipototec revere her memory. In four or five years, when the current crop of children are old enough to start school it’s going to be a nightmare, as one in ten of the girls will be named Zokala, another one in ten will be called Tanda Havra. A full third of the boys will be named Tuck.”

The statue was very lifelike and the craftsmen were now working on the lower third of the torso. The girl was bare from the waist up, and even so, wore even less than Puma would, just a tiny, fringed triangle in front. She was posed with one hand in the air, the other making a beckoning motion, as she looked over her shoulder. Someone urging people into battle, Puma thought.

“Why show me this?”

“To give you an idea that what you want isn’t as simple as it sounds. If you think the people of Xipototec hold Zokala in esteem, surely you’ve heard the stories of Tazi of Mogdai?”

Puma jerked her head in assent. “My no-blood sister’s companion.”

“Companion, friend, comrade. Girl, until you’ve been in a big fight, where the only way you live is because those on either side of you do their duty and do it well, you will never understand the way Tanda Havra felt about Tazi. If you’ve heard the stories, think about that and just that.”

Again he turned away and she walked by his side, glancing over her shoulder at the statue. There were statues of her father, she knew, but they had been made by the Hostigi, not the Ruthani. And, in truth, not that many, because no man understood if what he’d done had been a brave deed or a terrible crime.

Two soldiers in front of the palace snapped to attention, their hands, extended across their weapons in some sort of salute, but they said and did nothing else as the soldier beside Puma continued forward.

Inside, the sudden dimness was refreshing, even if for a heartbeat Puma couldn’t see much. She sensed someone next to her, and she looked at him. And looked and looked. Up, up, up and further up! Her half-blood brother Leem was a big man. Her full-blood brother Tanda Sa was accounted huge by Ruthani standards. This man dwarfed either. No, in truth, this man would dwarf the two together!

“Brother, you are late,” the huge man said in a voice as deep as he was tall.

“Big, may I present,” he stopped and turned to Puma. “Miss, I didn’t ask your name. I’m sorry.”

“Puma,” she said, still eyeing the mountain of a man.

“Puma, daughter of the Lion of Ruthani.”

The huge pile of flesh moved faster than she would have imagined any man could.

“SOLDIERS OF XIPOTOTEC!”

His voice boomed, echoing off the walls of the very large room. Puma winced, it was so loud.

“ATTEN...” his voice paused as around the room soldiers turned towards them and seem to stiffen. “HUT!”

There was a crash as many feet slammed into the ground at once.

“The daughter of the Lion of the Ruthani! PRESENT!” The last word was oddly lilting, and she was shaking her head. This was much, much too much!

“HARMS!” Again the voice echoed off the walls, and there was another crash of sound as men slammed their rifle butts on the floor, once, twice, three times, the last time being the loudest. Then they were saluting as those outside had done.

“Gosh, Big,” the soldier next to Puma whispered, “don’t get carried away or anything!”

There was a modest stir and Puma saw all eyes turn towards a curving staircase that came down into the room. There was a man there, not tall, not short. He wasn’t handsome or ugly, he wasn’t heavy or thin; he was quite ordinary. The woman next to him was a smidge taller than he was and as dusky as Puma. She, at least, had been described to Puma often.

With sudden insight, Puma understood two things: who he was and why so many of the Lost Ruthani hadn’t done what they were told. That the Duke of Mexico wasn’t physically impressive wasn’t a surprise, although from the stories about him, you’d never know it. Still, most men weren’t like her brothers, like the huge man standing next to her.

“Big, I want to thank you for helping the recruiting efforts,” the man on the steps said genially. “I do believe that’s got even the dead out of their graves, headed in to enlist.”

There was laughter through the room.

“At ease!” the man next to her commanded. While it wasn’t the booming thunder of before, there was no doubt that none had trouble hearing him.

The soldier who had brought her here spoke up. “Duke Tuck, this is Puma, daughter of the Lion of the Ruthani.”

Both the duke and the woman who was certainly her no-blood sister looked at her.

“Short, if you would, would you please escort the young woman to the presence room,” Tanda Havra said.

The soldier bowed and watched as the two turned and walked back up the stairs.

He turned to Puma. “My brother is prone to grand gestures. If you tell him to his face not to do it again, he’ll obey.”

Puma lifted an eyebrow. One such as her command a man such as that? Among the Ruthani such a notion would have been treated with derision. But then, more than two hundred men of the Ruthani had been found wanting, hadn’t they?

She stepped forward, heading for the steps. The soldier who’d walked with her this far was caught off guard, but caught up in a few steps.


	7. Treason

I

The Queen of Zarthan listened in silence to General Khoogra’s report about the latest events in the south, while not looking at the man. She glanced at her husband, sitting a few feet away. He was staring raptly at the general, the opposite of his wife.

Such preliminary Council meetings had become customary, to help the king and his advisors prepare for the main meeting that would follow shortly. Of course, General Khoogra was the only man in the realm of Zarthan who didn’t know that today’s Council meeting was held over for two palm widths. This time it was just the king and queen, a little unusual, but then, it was their choice, was it not?

When the general finished, Elspeth thought Freidal looked amused. She wasn’t amused, though. She was just barely able to hold herself still, fighting her desire to leap across the table and cut the man’s throat.

Elspeth turned back to the general and smiled politely. “General Khoogra, could you please inform us as to the progress at the rifle factory in Baytown?”

The man bobbed his head. “Your highness, we are having technical problems making the steel according to the specifications that the High King sent us. It is my opinion that he has deliberately misled us.”

“That would not be a very friendly act on the part of the High King, wouldn’t you say, General? To mislead the King of Zarthan, a man he has sworn to treat with as an equal?” Elspeth offered.

General Khoogra shrugged. “Your highness, there is no other explanation. We have tried the formula repeatedly without success. Even without that steel, the trigger mechanisms don’t work as they should, using our best materials.”

General Khoogra saw King Freidal wave at someone behind him and he turned slightly to see who it was.

Count Xitki Quillan stood in the door, with General Denethon next to him. “Sire, a word,” Count Quillan said.

“Please, Count Quillan, General Khoogra was just finishing. He was telling us how the plans for rifles that the High King sent us don’t work.”

General Khoogra nodded somberly. “I can explain it in no other way, Count Quillan. The plans the High King sent us are defective.”

“General,” General Denethon said, a rifle appearing in his hands.

General Khoogra was startled, but he had no place to go, with the table behind him and an armed man in front of him. “Guards! Guards! Defend your King!” he called at the top of his lungs.

The guards didn’t move or show any sign that he’d spoken.

“This is, General Khoogra,” General Denethon went on, “a rifle made according to the pattern that the High King sent King Freidal–made in a factory of Count Quillan’s. According to you, the weapon doesn’t work, the trigger mechanism fails and the steel is inferior.”

General Denethon aimed directly at General Khoogra’s head. “Would you like me to pull the trigger, General?”

The general looked around, taking in the guards who hadn’t moved, a king who stared at him without expression and the usurper who aspired far higher than such as her should ever aspire, sitting quietly watching him like a flock of birds watching a lone worm.

“Pull it,” Khoogra told Denethon. “I don’t fear you.”

Something hit his back, something that itched for a heartbeat. He didn’t dare claw to relieve the itch.

“That, General Khoogra,” the Queen of Zarthan spoke from behind him, “was a dart from an air gun. It’s filled with sleepy juice. Too many of your sort kill themselves. When you wake up, why, we’ll have a nice little chat.”

Then the general did claw at his back, and when that didn’t work, belatedly, he tried for his knife sheathed in his belt. His limbs were leaden, his vision was narrowing rapidly. He did manage to whirl and spit in the woman’s direction before he collapsed soddenly to the floor.

The King of Zarthan gestured at one of his guards. “Tiki, see to General Khoogra. He is to be kept alive and treated reasonably until my lady or I wish to talk to him. Say, shortly after sunset.”

The man bowed low. “As you command, my Lord!”

The guard gestured and four men appeared with a stretcher, loaded the general onto it and marched out of the King of Zarthan’s Council Chamber.

“Count Quillan, General Denethon, attend us,” Freidal commanded. “The rest of you, leave. Everyone.”

Xitki Quillan walked a few feet and pulled a small bench away from the wall. Seeing that, General Denethon lent a hand and they placed it a few feet from the King and Queen of Zarthan.

After a second a young woman, Alros, sister to the king, walked from the shadows and sat down between Count Quillan and Denethon, without a word.

“I assume your rifle would have worked, Denethon,” Freidal said sourly.

“Yes, my King. We have two hundred more just like it that also perform as the High King promised.”

Freidal waved his hand. “Here, Denethon, I am Freidal, this is Lady Elspeth. Count Quillan, to be sure, and Denethon, your lady wife, Lady Alros.”

“Of course, my King, it shall be as you wish.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Denethon,” Elspeth interjected, “pretend! My husband wants to fool himself into thinking he’s back in the field, fighting as a simple cavalry captain.”

“Of course, Lady Elspeth!”

Count Quillan spoke up. “It isn’t that I didn’t trust General Denethon, it’s more like I wanted to see for myself how stupid Khoogra thinks we are. My smiths have built several factories as well as six hundred rifles that work just fine from the High King’s plans.”

Freidal sighed heavily. “We will question General Khoogra most closely, but does anyone believe for an instant that anyone would trust such a transparent fool with more than the barest outlines of a plot?”

“Plotters make mistakes, sire,” General Denethon told him. “Not always, but now and then. We have to be aware of that and seek such failures and then be ready to exploit them.”

Count Quillan met Freidal’s eye and Freidal nodded. Count Quillan spoke softly. “My people pride themselves on their removal from the intrigues of the court in Baytown. More than once those of the foul God Styphon sent men among us and found warm welcomes...very warm welcomes when we kindled fireseed under their feet when we could learn nothing further from them. But, as loyal as my people are, there were always some who listened.”

Freidal nodded. “It will grieve me greatly to know for sure that Tiki is bent, instead of merely suspecting it.”

“Worse, sire,” Alros spoke for the first time. “Unless he overtly betrays himself, you still won’t know for sure.”

“Sister mine, you of all those here, know how little I wish to stand on formality with those I trust and love,” the king said.

“As I would have wished, brother. Except after our father died, I made every man who entered my presence press his nose in the dirt every other step. Twice men said no; the first one I had shot, the second needed only the reminder,” Alros told her older brother. “I took no pleasure in it, I swear. I loathed it. But it was that or...”

Or those men would never have taken orders from a sixteen-year-old orphan girl. Alros had acted swiftly to find and kill those who murdered their father, and in passing, pressed a lot of noses into the dirt. It had taken one example and one threat of a repeat to get them there and keep them there.

Elspeth sighed. “Look, we all have different points of view. For me, it’s Frei, Al, Deni and Count Quillan. You all do what you want.”

Freidal chuckled. “Count Quillan, eh?”

“Of course. Of all of you, he’s the only one who has figured me out.”

Freidal turned to his mentor and friend. “Xitki? You’ve figured out my wife? And you haven’t told me?”

Quillan smiled. “Sire, your wife is a strong woman.”

“And that’s it?” Freidal asked.

“It’s quite enough,” Alros said pertly. “Count Quillan–how do you see me?”

“A strong-willed young woman, who has come into her own.”

Denethon cracked up, laughing. “You can say that again!”

“None of this addresses the problems of the crown,” Freidal reminded them.

“Actually, sire, it does,” Xitki said, contradicting his king.

“We here in this room trust each other implicitly. We have found, to our chagrin and regret, that our enemy, the man we sought to throw down, the High King of Hostigos, is a man we can trust and it’s those who should be loyal to us who can’t be trusted. We must be cautious of even those we once thought of as most loyal. This is a terrible thing, where even long service and long trust doesn’t suffice. It is, Freidal, the legacy of Styphon.”

“Styphon? They’re gone, discredited!”

“Gone, yes. Discredited, yes. But you were the one who spoke about legacy here and the legacy I’m talking about is the one that has been the bane of all the kings and princes in the land since we first arrived on these shores. That legacy is the ease of treason, aimed at individual aggrandizement, with little or no regard to what that treason will mean to the people or to the kingdom. Where men, and aye, women, value their honor so little that they will sell it for less than a troop of cavalry.”

“What do you recommend, then?” Freidal asked.

“Tomorrow, unless General Khoogra’s confederates are stupid beyond belief, we shoot him from the guns of South Fort. Then we take stock.

“We’ve long thought the plots were directed by Styphon. Except Styphon is gone and they died entirely too easily and above all, badly, for my taste,” Quillan told his king.

“Their leaders were in the main temple here in Baytown. Alros’ troops surrounded it, and in the fighting it caught fire and burned down. None escaped.

“The plots of the new king in Tenosh are simple and straightforward. Much more so than what we are seeing here. I am concerned that perhaps we erred: that there were plotters behind Styphon, plotters who seek to enslave us all. And that by ending Styphon, we made them drop but one arrow from their quiver.”

“Styphon was a front for something else?” Freidal asked, frowning. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that idea, but it still seemed impossible.

“Not a knowing one,” Quillan told his King. “But a front nonetheless.”

“That’s a scary thought,” Elspeth mused. She looked around the room, to check that indeed no one else was present. “You’ve all heard stories, no doubt, how I and my friends came here?”

“In a magic wagon,” Denethon said, “pulled by invisible horses, armored with mysterious magic. You came from the Winter Lands, as did the High King.”

“And we’ve said over and over again, that we came from near Mogdai village, in the lands claimed by the Ruthani,” Elspeth told them. “No invisible horses, no magic armor...not even a magic wagon.

“I tell you true, now. I speak the words of Lord Tuck, in their most secret. I speak the words of the High King in his most secret of secrets.

“Vile sorcerers brought us to this place,” Elspeth told them.

“I’ve heard that,” Count Quillan told her. “A terrible thing!”

“You have no idea, Count, none. One heartbeat we were about our innocent pursuits and then we were here. We were forever severed from our family and friends, stranded in a land where none of us spoke the language, where none of us understood your customs, and none of us understood why people were trying to kill us.

“Yes, you’ve learned that we react harshly to that. I’ve killed a man with my bare hands. First I hurt him, and then I gave him grace. You all know how I arrived: pregnant. My homeland isn’t paradise, any more than the lands of Zarthan or the High King are.

Elspeth waved around them. “There is a group of people, King Kalvan and Lord Tuck figure, who can move from place to place, time to time. For every decision anyone makes, imagine what would happen if the opposite choice was made, or if it was delayed a day, or advanced a day. Imagine a world where that was the decision you made, instead of the action you actually took. In some worlds the decision works, in others it fails. All possible combinations.

“And these people can move from one of these worlds to another with the ease of one of us walking into the next room.

“The people who brought us here must not want people like us to know that there are those among us who aren’t from our world. If they are human, though, if they have any of the traits of the rest of us, they will seek to dominate, take advantage and, above all, rule. All this behind the scenes, as plotters and connivers.

“These people are unspeakably evil, to come amongst us in this fashion. To tear people from their homes, from their families...even from their fates, as these people seem to do.

“Lord Tuck says that we have to be alert that they might attack us. Because we have knowledge that they cannot afford to have broadcast.”

The group was silent, trying to digest that.

Denethon stirred. “Sire, Lady Elspeth, I am under compulsion to speak.”

“Compulsion?” Freidal asked, his hand on his pistol.

“Yes, Lord. I swear, that while the words aren’t mine, they represent what I was told. Even though I speak them, they aren’t mine.”

He looked both frustrated and angry. “Before the High King ordered me returned, I had an interview with General Verkan. Please, I beg of you, the words I have to speak aren’t my own. I have no choice, none!”

He paused, and then his voice deepened and changed. “My name is Verkan. One of you knows my voice. I suspect others of you will hear it later.

“I was a policeman, tasked to protect a secret, a secret that you all now know. According to our laws, you are now subject to immediate execution.

“Except, none of you sought our secret, none of you desired to know it, and unless I’m sorely mistaken, have serious and immediate concerns of your own that dwarf any possible concerns that such as I might bring to the table.”

Denethon was breathing hard and was looking terribly distressed. But still words continued to come from his lips.

“You know my people’s greatest secret. This I promise you: tell our secret outside of this group and we will kill you. All of you. Keep our secret, I beg you.

“You have no reason to trust me and mine.

“But if you don’t, you doom yourselves and those who follow you.

“For the most part, we watch. That is our job. It is our enemies who seek to interfere in such times and places as yours. Our enemies are abroad in numbers we’ve not seen before. Defend yourselves, don’t talk about what and why and against whom you are defending.”

Denethon promptly bent double and threw up.

Alros knelt next to him, speaking softly to him, stroking his brow.

Count Quillan was the first to speak. “I wish he’d left us a sign or signal, as to who we could trust.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Elspeth told him. “Not to be sure.”

She chuckled, then. “I know what we can do!”

“What is that, lady wife?” Freidal asked.

“Why, someone in Denethon’s entourage has to be one of them. If we catch a plotter we’re not sure about, why, we tell Denethon’s people, one at a time. Eventually we’ll figure out who’s the contact. In the meantime, they will take care of our security problems.”

“And if these ‘problems’ don’t vanish?” Alros asked.

“Why, then we know those problems are ours and that we need to redouble our efforts!”

“You’re trusting them to tell us the truth,” Freidal told Elspeth.

Elspeth shrugged. “Yes. At some point in time, we’ll learn the truth of it. Although we should be careful, as our enemies might try to play us for fools.”

Freidal looked at Denethon, who was gray and shaken. “They can compel us to do their will, against ours. They don’t need to play us for anything, they can just reach out and take what they want.”

“Sire...” Denethon’s voice was weak.

They all looked at him. “Freidal, it is hard to say what that felt like. I listened to the instructions and I had the ability to say no.”

“But you spoke anyway,” Alros said, confused.

“I could see and hear the words in my mind, Alros. I knew what they were. They had to be said, don’t you see? There’s more, more that I didn’t say. I could have, if I wanted. I could do it now. It’s a private message for Lady Elspeth.

“Well, spill it,” Elspeth told him. “Feel free to speak right up.”

Denethon shook his head. “It wouldn’t be proper, Lady Elspeth. This is truly meant for your ears only.”

“And I’m serious. Tell me, tell all of us what the message is.”

Denethon shrugged, and his voice changed once again. “Lady Elspeth, you understand that there are various levels of technology. Were you to speak of _radio_ to these people, they would think you were talking about communing with the spirits. Talk about landing a man on the moon, and having him walk around there–these people wouldn’t understand, yet your people have done that very thing.

“Our technology is vastly different as well as vastly greater than yours. One of the things we understand quite well is what happens to the soul when the body dies. We can follow it to its next body; we can free it from the memory constraints that would normally protect it from memories of the past. You call this reincarnation.

“We understand it, we can control it, to a degree. Lady Elspeth, the soul that took possession of your son at his birth is a monster greater than you can imagine. Kill him now or you’ll regret it later.”

Denethon met Elspeth’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Lady Elspeth.”

“Why?” she asked him. “You have no more guilt as to the content of the message as does any signal sergeant bringing us bad news.”

“It feels more personal when you’ve had it bottled up inside you, waiting for the right moment to speak.”

Freidal reached out and put his arm around Elspeth’s waist and pulled her closer to him. “It can be done, Elspeth.”

“Easily, no doubt,” she said, staring into the distance.

“Killing an infant is only easy to the depraved,” Freidal rejoined. “But it can be done.”

“Not now,” she told him. “I’m sorry. It was you yourself who told me that he was half my son. I have no idea how much inheritance means, if souls truly pass from person to person. I will see him, I’ll have him watched, but I won’t have him killed. Not yet, anyway.”

“Lord Verkan seemed rather certain,” Denethon offered.

“Aye, such men always sound certain,” Elspeth told him. “It’s called salesmanship.”

She looked around the room. “Now, I have a state secret for you. One known only by myself, up until this moment. I’m pregnant.”

Freidal let out a whoop, grabbed Elspeth and whirled her around, kissing her hard as he did.

II

As soon as the sun was up the next morning after what the men were now calling the Wagon Box fight, the signal mirrors were flashing. Lieutenant Gryllos and Captain Landsruhl were standing next to the Hostigi signal sergeant, already told to send their status. The signaler saw the first few flashes and turned to Gryllos. “Sir, Brigadier Markos sends, ‘Mission successful?’”

“Tell him yes,” Gryllos told the signaler.

There were more flashes and the signal sergeant again turned to Gryllos. “Lieutenant, the brigadier sends, ‘Alert Zarthani commander of special message coming from the west.’”

They all dutifully turned around, and a signal mirror flashed to the northwest. The signaler spoke to them as he continued to watch the flashes. “Lieutenant, Captain, this is a special message. I am directed to write it down, and then deliver it verbatim. Please, sirs, be patient for a few moments.”

For the next finger width the mirrors flashed back and forth while the sergeant wrote on a scrap of paper. He finished writing, then acknowledged, then the message started again. “They’re repeating it, in case I missed something,” the sergeant said. “As if!”

Finally, the sergeant turned to Captain Landsruhl. “Sir, I know the signaler on that peak; we have codes, do you understand, sir, to show that the message is true? Sir, this is a true message. It reads, ‘For Captain Landsruhl of the Army of Zarthan, from King Freidal by his own hand.’ That means, sir, just what it says. No palace officer or official wrote this, your king wrote it himself. It continues, ‘Captain Landsruhl your highest duty to the realm is to see that Corporal Trilium and Private Noius arrive safely at Outpost. You are authorized to sacrifice yourself and your command to insure Private Noius in particular arrives safely. You are authorized to request all assistance from the forces of the High King to accomplish your duty.’ It’s signed, Freidal, King of Zarthan and has yesterday’s date.”

Gryllos’ next reply was automatic. “Check to see if there are any further messages from west or east.”

The signaler flashed his mirror northwest, then southeast. “Sir, Brigadier Markos says the Sixth Mounted will arrive in four palm widths. Until then, continue to secure your objective.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Gryllos told the man. “That will be all for now.”

“Sir, in less than a palm width the sun will be too high for us to signal west. Those to our east will have trouble signaling us by then.”

“I understand, Sergeant. Thank you.”

Gryllos waited until the sergeant left and turned to Captain Landsruhl. “Now your orders are the same as mine.”

“Yes, Lieutenant. I never doubted your word.”

Gryllos looked around and even though no one was close, he lowered his voice even so. “I’m also not a nobleman, Captain. I’m just a lieutenant. The designs of kings, generals...even captains, sir, aren’t any part of mine, except as I’m told.”

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not noble either, but I imagine both of us have aspirations to higher rank and perhaps to the nobility. Still, I think you’re talking about something else.”

“Sir, we carried out our orders, those two are safe, and I believe strongly than there is no substantial threat to them at this time. But sir, sometimes there are things in orders that aren’t spoken.

“What I mean is that I’m sure that my general will be here soon. He will listen to our report, and then he’ll make some decisions. Noius and Trilium will be riding towards Outpost within a palm width after he arrives, sir. I’m sure of it.”

“I imagine you are right,” Captain Landsruhl agreed, watching Gryllos carefully. “You are saying that we have something else to do.”

“I think, sir, that you do. Myself, I’ve been thinking about what I could do in your place and I have no suggestions. But if King Freidal, Count Errock and Brigadier Markos wished Noius and Trilium to travel in secrecy up to now, I imagine they want that to continue. Sir, to summarily send them to Outpost would make it clear that there was something unusual about them. There would be talk.”

“Great Galzar! I never gave it a thought! You’re right, Lieutenant.”

Captain Landsruhl thought for a moment and then smiled. “I have dispatches for Count Errock. Sergeant Trilium and Corporal Noius were the ones who spotted the attack. If I were to detach them ahead to Outpost with those dispatches, they would be getting hot baths, soft beds and good food long before the rest of us! A proper reward for saving our lives! The only talk will be the usual soldier’s stories.”

He looked at Gryllos. “I’m still worried about my own fate when Brigadier Markos or Count Errock find out I gave them extra duty every single day.”

“You say Trilium is a known troublemaker?”

Landsruhl nodded in assent.

“Sir, I doubt if any of your soldiers were surprised that Trilium and Noius were singled out for ‘special’ treatment. Again, there will be the usual soldier’s talk about how you pressed Trilium, but how he and Noius saved their lives. They will talk about their deeds, but as soldiers do, not in a fashion that would threaten the secrecy of their journey.”

Captain Landsruhl nodded. “Lieutenant, don’t let it turn your head, but I plan on giving your general a very glowing report about you, your initiative and the prowess of your soldiers.”

“You didn’t do badly yourself, sir.”

Landsruhl shook his head. “I delayed a half day for no reason other than I found the desert uncomfortable. I gave two soldiers extra duty when they are the favorites of the king. I didn’t do nearly as well as you did.”

“Sir, everyone makes mistakes. If you hadn’t lost that half-day, you’d have ridden away from this waterhole at High Sun and a palm width later they’d have hit you hard. The shooting, the smoke, would have brought out me and some of my men to see what was going on. They’d have destroyed both of us, sir.”

“Lieutenant, please! I’m a captain! I’ve made mistakes before! I’ve never been in a position where my mistakes made things turn out right. As you say, it’s easy to contemplate what might have happened if I hadn’t made those mistakes. It still doesn’t detract from what they were.”

“Sir, I don’t know how they do it in the Army of Zarthan, but in your position I’d just state the facts of what happened and leave it to kings and generals to decide if you made any mistakes.”

III

General Khoogra looked up as they let someone into the cell where he was chained to a wall. His feet were chained, his hands were chained, and there was even something in his mouth that prevented him from biting down.

He girded himself to face the usurper, wishing he could spit in her face.

Instead, it was the young sister of the king who faced him.

“You know who I am, General?” Alros asked.

General Khoogra nodded.

“Know this, then. You know who I am. You know how I treated the men who plotted to kill my father. I was abrupt with them! Do you understand?”

Again, the general nodded.

“I had a man shot in front of me for not putting his nose in the dirt, as I commanded. Do you remember that?”

General Khoogra was frustrated just being able to nod. He tried to gesture at his bonds.

She laughed at him!

“General, as we speak, an artillery crew at South Fort is pulling the cannon ball from one of our largest bombards. Tomorrow, just before dawn, we’ll march you along the wall to the gun, and there you’ll be loaded into it. You’ll be bound and gagged. You could be willing to incriminate any and all, at that point. Do you understand that no one would ever hear you or know?

“Now, general! Now is the time to talk! There will never be another.”

She smiled coldly at him. “You can kill yourself. We looked for hollow teeth and found none, but Lady Elspeth says we’ll never know for sure until we know for sure. If, perchance, you die before the morrow and I’m dissatisfied with what you’ve told me, why, you’ll have soiled yourself in death. We will march your dead body as if it was alive, with guards slapping and punching you, talking to you...and you will be fired out of the cannon with all men thinking you an abject coward who soiled himself before his execution.

“Or, you can nod your head. We will remove the dam from your mouth and you will be given a chance to talk. I swear to you, the first time I sense any hesitation, any attempt to hold back, the smallest lie–the gag will go in and I will walk away. Trust me, after I leave you will be fired from that gun. Nothing will stay your execution.

“So, do you have anything to say?”

The man’s eyes were wild. Then, abruptly, she could only see the whites of his eyes. He started choking and a few seconds later, he was dead.

She looked at the three guards. “You, and only you, know he’s dead. You would not want to be alive if I ever hear General Khoogra was dead when he was loaded into the bombard at South Fort. You have your orders. Carry them out!”

She turned and walked away.

IV

Trilium kept Noia inside the wagon boxes the next morning until after the Hostigi arrived. It was a little too much to hope that they could remain secret much longer.

Sure enough, less than a finger width after the Hostigi brigadier arrived, Trilium and Noia stood facing him. With him were Captain Landsruhl, Lieutenant Gryllos, Leem and Tanda Sa.

After the introductions, Brigadier Markos was brief. “I understand you’ve just been promoted sergeant, Sergeant Trilium.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, then you understand how important it is to obey orders.” Captain Landsruhl’s expression for an instant showed incredulity, but his face quickly returned to normal.

“Please, you and Corporal Noius gather your things and report to Lieutenant Robalyos, my logistos. He will see that they are packed with our things. Be prepared to move in a palm width; less, if we hurry!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Sergeant Trilium,” Captain Landsruhl interjected, “I have dispatches for Count Errock, that and when you get to Outpost see to our quarters and support, if you would. Although our arrival date is indefinite, I’ll send you word well in advance.”

Noia thought that Brigadier Markos wasn’t terribly thrilled with the captain’s order, but wasn’t going to say anything about it.

Then there was a flurry of things to do. In less than a finger width Noia and Trilium were mounted, and in short order, a column of two hundred of the mounted infantry were headed east.

They’d been riding for a few finger widths when Brigadier Markos fell back and rode next to Noia.

“We will stop for water in a palm width at the remount station. Our next stop will be in the very late afternoon and tonight we’ll make a cold camp at nightfall. The day after, we’ll be moving again at first light and by evening of the day after that we’ll be in Outpost.”

“I’ll be fine, sir.” She stopped short of telling him sarcastically that this wasn’t her first time on a horse.

“How long will the water stops be, sir?” Trilium asked across Noia.

“Two finger widths, Sergeant, but the first one after the remount post won’t be until the middle of tomorrow morning.”

A palm width later they were stopped at the remount station. It had been burned out, the corrals destroyed and dead horses dotted the landscape as they approached.

Noia got off her horse and stretched. Tanda Sa stepped close to her and handed her a water bag. “Whenever you have time for me,” he said without inflection, turned and walked away.

Noia watched him go shaking her head, then she went looking for the brigadier. He was meeting with some of his officers. Noia walked right up and when everyone went silent, she spoke. “Is Lieutenant Gryllos going to have trouble for abandoning his post?”

Markos met her eyes. “You were not privy to the lieutenant’s orders. That you’re here tells me he carried them out. However, it’s equally true that between what happened here and the Zarthani convoy, we lost about a thousand horses.”

For the first time in a while, Noia paled. A thousand horses? That would beggar most counties!

The general went on to confirm her concern. “We don’t have that many spares, so we have sent to the King of Zarthan for assistance. The convoy will have to await those horses. That will be about a half moon to organize and another half moon to get the horses to them.

“There may be commanders who would consider a lieutenant who fought five hundred of the God-King’s soldiers with fifty of his own and twenty-five horse handlers and a bunch of Zarthani soldiers and drovers as a failure for only killing half and losing two dozen men in the process. However, I’m not one of those, and while I don’t speak for the High King on this, I am fairly sure I know what he’ll say as well. ‘Well done, Lieutenant!’”

“Thank you, sir,” she responded.

He smiled. “If you can still thank me in a day and a half, perhaps I’ll see if some day you would be interested in serving with the Sixth Mounted.” He waved to the horses. “Mount up!”

Officers and sergeants took up the cry and then they were moving once again.

V

Legios stopped and watched the young woman walking across the main square of Xipototec. Without her face painted, it gave him something other to look at than her breasts. That made him sigh with relief, because since that day he dreamed about those breasts entirely too much. Now she was dressed as most of the people were in Xipototec, with a tunic top covered with elaborate stitchery, loose-fitting trousers with matching embroidery, and one of the ubiquitous straw hats like the one that Countess Judy had once made for the man she married.

Maya saw Legios and waved at him. She turned and walked up to him, bowing slightly. “Captain! I want to thank you on behalf of my mother and myself for keeping us and our possessions safe!”

His mind whirled. She was so beautiful! Was this how men like the duke and Gamelin felt when they saw the women of their dreams? If it wasn’t, it was a cruel trick! Worse, of course, how do you find out if the woman of your dreams is of a like mind?

He smiled as politely as he knew how. “Lady Maya, it is a good day when doing one’s duty is also doing a favor for a pair of beautiful women!”

She grinned at him. “My mother will be flattered when I tell her you are thinking of her!”

He could see the sparkle of mirth in her eyes. She was pulling his leg and there was nothing he could do about it!

“My lady, it’s my understanding that you have aided us greatly with your reports about what happened in Tenosh.”

She waved a hand. “I grew up there, at court. I loved it, the pomp, the ceremonies. To have to flee in fear of my life–I would never have believed I’d live to see it.”

Legios outwardly smiled, but inwardly winced. Those ceremonies had sent thousands, millions, to an early grave. And their deaths hadn’t been pleasant.

Maya frowned. “I know it is not your way. But please! We do not criticize your ways! Surely it is cruel for an old man or woman to die gasping and gurgling, when their lungs fill with fluid! Surely it is cruel to allow a deformed child to live, crippled and hobbled by fate! Have you seen a man with a tumor growing out of his chest, writhing in pain? You allow such to die in the street!”

“Rarely,” Legios said, rather desperately. It was rare, he knew, but it did happen. Still, not all of those who went under the knives of the priests of God-King had anything wrong with them.

Maya stood with her hands on her hips, her lips curled up in derision. Then she laughed. “We talk of silly things! Things that no longer happen in the lands of the Hostigi! We have seen such wonders here, my mother and I!”

“We try,” Legios told her, trying to regain his balance.

“Please, Captain! This discussion should never have started. Tonight, my mother is holding a dinner for some of the leaders of Xipototec.” Maya leaned close and whispered, “My mother is thinking we should move to Tecpan. It is not the duke’s town, as it is merely tributary, but the prices here are terrible! Please, come tonight, as my guest!”

Legios wanted to laugh. Obviously, Maya had no idea what tributary meant in the lands of the High King. On the other hand, such an invitation was worth its weight in gold!

“I’d be honored, Lady Maya!”

“Three palm widths after the sun goes down,” Maya told him. “Our house is on the west side of the main square.” She turned and pointed to it. “The one with a hawk painted on the front door.”

“I’ll be there, Lady Maya!”

VI

Much later, Legios straightened up and walked forward to the gate with the hawk on it. A soldier stood there, one of the Mexicotál, a sergeant. “My lord?” the man asked.

“Captain Legios, here at the invitation of Lady Maya!”

“Pass, sir.” The man grinned at him and whispered conspiratorially. “Sir, you would not believe the number of junior officers trying to sneak in for the free food, free drink and above all, the women!”

Legios smiled slightly. “I’m a captain. I don’t have to sneak.”

The man laughed. “That and you are on the guest list, sir! Please, Lady Maya asked her guards to tell you that you are welcome and that she’s on the patio around to the east side of the house.”

Legios heart soared when he saw her and that was redoubled when she stopped talking to the circle of her admirers and came to him. She wrapped her arm in his. “Captain! My mother and I are honored!”

“I am just a captain in the army of the High King,” Legios repeated. “Nothing special.”

“Of course! Come, meet some of the members of the Council of Xipototec.” She hung onto his arm and turned to retrace her steps. Legios started to sweat. He was sure it was entirely innocent, but her breast was pressed against his elbow.

It was a pleasant evening, beyond a pleasant evening. At the end, Legios told Maya that he had to leave and she nodded. “Can you come next feast day? That is the last day my mother and I will be in this house, before we move to Tecpan. We plan on having our largest party ever, then leaving the place a terrible mess for the owner. He has cheated us terribly! We had to buy all of the furniture! We had to paint! We had to put in rugs! And now he insists we leave them to him! And so we shall! But they won’t be worth much!”

Legios grimaced. He’d heard enough stories from some of the married officers to know such things happened often. Lord Tuck was harsh with landlords who did that to one of his officers, but for two women, alone in the world? Who would protect them? Sure, the High King’s laws should protect them, but this was the real world, three thousand miles from Hostigos! He understood full well the rancor of Maya and her mother!

Maya smiled at him, then leaned close and kissed him on the cheek. “Are you due into Tecpan, soon?”

“Soon enough, Lady Maya! Soon enough! May I call?”

He couldn’t believe he’d said that with such panache!

“If you don’t call, I shall go to the garrison commander and have you hauled before me!”

Legios sighed as he walked away from the house, where the sound of merriment was ratcheting up. His only thought was the memory of the press of Maya’s breast against his arm. In spite of his direction, that memory buoyed his steps.


	8. Outposts

I

The next two and a half days weren’t as bad as they would have been if Noia had left Baytown riding like they did on the way to Outpost. A moon and a half on the road had toughened Noia to the point where it was simply unpleasant, not impossible.

Great Galzar! Did Brigadier Markos and his soldiers move fast!

They topped a ridge and looked down at the lake with Outpost on an island towards the wide end. Brigadier Markos was sitting his horse not far from Noia and grinned at her. “When the Grand Marshal first saw Outpost he turned to the High King and is reputed to have said, ‘Why don’t you give me towns like this to defend?’”

The other officers had guarded smiles and Noia bobbed her head. The fiction of her being an ordinary trooper was wearing thin. She didn’t think that any of the soldiers realized she was a woman, but she spent entirely too much time with Brigadier Markos, much more than any ordinary corporal would.

Another palm width and they were on a ferry, being pulled across to the island that was Outpost. Not everyone, mostly just officers, plus Trilium, Noia and Tanda Sa.

At the water’s edge they were greeted by Count Errock and his wife and a Ruthani named Manistewa who was there to greet Tanda Sa, as well as number of others. Everyone was, she quickly learned, still pretending she was a corporal.

There were more introductions, more than Noia was able to keep track of. Count Errock stood out, reminding her of a thinner version of her father; not the same body shape, but the same quickness of mind, the same grasp of issues.

Manistewa also stood out, because he was introduced as a trader of the Northern Ruthani. Noia hadn’t cared for the man when she first saw him and hearing his origin, her suspicions redoubled.

After a finger width of small talk Count Errock’s wife spoke up. “I believe our guests might appreciate a chance for a good soak and a short nap before you haul them before the court for dinner tonight.”

The count bowed to his wife. “Sergeant Trilium, Corporal Noius, please, this is Lady Becky,” he indicated a girl a little younger than Noia, who had been standing silent and hadn’t been introduced before then. “Lady Becky, if you would, would you escort our guests to the visitor’s quarters.”

“Aye, Count Errock,” the girl said confidently. She smiled at Noia. “Please, follow me. I hope you are in good shape, because Outpost is a city of steps. Up and down and all around.”

“By now, Lady,” Trilium told her, “we are past caring.”

“Well, if I go too fast, tell me. Outpost is more than a mile above sea level and you will find yourself tiring faster than you are used to for the first few days. Cooking here is a real experience!”

Noia was quite sure that the rooms she was led to were another mile higher, yet.

Lady Becky opened the door and ushered Noia and Trilium through. They were in a large, well appointed room. “There, sergeant, are your chambers,” Lady Becky pointed to a door. “There is a bath already drawn for you and clean clothes that should suit you. If not, there is a small hand bell; ring that and someone will see to your needs. In fact, for anything you need, ring the bell.”

She turned to Noia. “Please, come with me.” She led the way across the chamber and through another door. This room was smaller than the one they’d just left. “This is a sitting room, there is a bath and garderobe through there,” she pointed out the doors. “A bedroom through there.”

“Do you know who I am?” Noia asked the younger girl.

“Yes, I do.”

“Am I a boy or a girl, today?”

Lady Becky grimaced. “Count Errock says that is your choice to make. He understands that deception isn’t honorable, lying isn’t comfortable, nor are those clothes and what’s expected of you when you’re wearing them. Still, he feels that it would be best if you remain as you are. Brigadier Markos is a canny man. He spread the rumor that you are the son of a high noble, on the run for your life, with enemies snapping at your heels.

“He has ascribed the attack on the remount post and the convoy as part of the plot. Count Errock believes that if it isn’t the truth, it’s certainly an odd coincidence. A fast ship might have left Baytown and reached one of the Olmecha towns, organized a raid, and gotten in place in time. Barely, probably. Elspeth feels the same way.”

It took a second for Noia to make a conscious connection between “Elspeth” and “Queen Elspeth.” From that, she remembered who Lady Becky was. This was the foremost scholar in Outpost? A girl not even as old as herself?

“Can you send the High King a message on my behalf?” Noia asked.

“Certainly, Lady Noia.”

“Message him and tell him I’ll remain a boy until just before I am to meet with him. Then I’ll resume a dress and my identity.”

Lady Becky grinned. “Most women greet the High King wearing dresses. However, you might want to reconsider that for later.” She waved at her own tunic and pants. “Lady Noia, you’ll be on one of the High King’s ships. The masts of those are taller than the walls of Outpost. Climbing in a dress might be difficult. It would certainly distract the crew on deck, all of whom would be looking up your skirt.”

Noia blushed, but Lady Becky shook her head. “I know, I favor dresses too, but not when I know I’m going to be going up and down the steps. You’ll get used to it.”

“At home, not many women wore pants and those women were the rougher sort.”

“Things were like that here, but it’s changing. As you have undoubtedly noticed, pants are much easier to go pee in.”

“There’s that,” Noia said with a laugh.

“My lady, please. There is a hot bath. I’ve been chased for miles and miles by people trying to kill me and mine. It’s no fun at all. My friends and I all have different backgrounds and different tastes in things. Yet, the moment we arrived here in Outpost we were offered a hot soak, and every last one of us were in the tubs as quickly as we could manage, even Duke Tuck.”

“A hot soak doesn’t cure all ills, but it doesn’t take long before you forget what was troubling you,” Noia agreed.

“Rest, relax, take a nap, if you wish. Count Errock is fond of late suppers, so you have three palm widths before I need to call you.”

Noia expected a horde of people at dinner, but there were barely a dozen. Count Errock and his wife, Count Nicomoth, Brigadier Markos, Trilium, Tanda Sa and Noia, Lady Becky, a priest of Dralm, a priest of Galzar and Manistewa.

Noia studied the Northern Ruthani closely, wondering how Count Errock could trust him.

Count Errock commanded that dinner conversation was to be about the marvels of learning. Noia remembered that the Queen had told her that Lady Becky headed the school here in Outpost, but seeing her had left Noia concerned once again. Yes, she had been with Duke Tuck and Countess Judy as well as Queen Elspeth, but how had that prepared her to head a school?

Altogether there were a lot of mysteries that she didn’t understand at first. For instance, Count Nicomoth had found the site for Outpost, designed the dam and roughed out a plan for the city. He was the premier military engineer of the High King, and he was the brother of Countess Linnea, Count Errock’s wife.

Yet, it was clear Count Nicomoth deferred to Lady Becky and when Noia asked probing questions about what was taught at her school at first it didn’t make sense.

“The High King,” Count Nicomoth had said, “insisted that I spend some time teaching the art of building at the college. At first, I thought it was a waste of time. When Lady Becky talked with me about what to teach, I was appalled. That wasn’t how you were supposed to teach at all!

“Yet, the more I thought, the more I understand what she meant. Together we have broken down the art of building into a variety of skills. Materials, design, construction and a couple of sub groups of those. Rock, wood, iron, for instance, for materials.

“Scheduling! We spent a half moon talking about how to teach scheduling construction! I learned ten times as much talking to Lady Becky as I ever learned from my master, and she knew only how to ask smart questions! Then we did a trial run with a half dozen young logistos who have to learn scheduling for their own duties!

“It was astonishing! There were so many things that applied as much to scheduling things in building as there are scheduling how much fireseed an army will need and where! By the time I finished that first class I had learned so very, very much!

“And now I have taught my skills to others! And they will be teaching and I will be teaching. It is beyond marvelous.”

“I don’t understand how someone who isn’t a master builder can teach a master builder his skill,” Noia told him.

He laughed, as did his brother-in-law. “H’duk!” Conut Nicomoth replied. “That’s Lady Becky’s abbreviation that means ‘How do you know?’ When you talk out such knowledge, you learn far more than you ever expected. I think that those masters who teach their skills are far greater masters than those who just work at their skill after having been apprentices.

“We have been going over every skill we can think of, talking with masters, refining subjects. The High King has heard of this and is very impressed. He has commanded that Lady Becky come to Hostigos for two years to show the masters at the High King’s University what we’ve been doing and what we’ve learned.”

Lady Becky smiled. “I told him I’d only agree if for every palm width I spent teaching, I spent one learning.”

Noia was aghast. “You bargained with the High King?”

Count Errock laughed. “Dear Noius, let me assure you that our king understands how to bargain! He does not fault a man–or woman–who bargains in good faith. The more important the subject, the more important it is that you should bargain is his belief.”

“I have a lot to learn myself, then,” she told them.

Brigadier Markos had spent most of the meal listening to the conversation and now he spoke, “Count Errock, may I inquire as to the status of dinner? Are we done eating?”

“Yes and yes, Brigadier,” the count said. Count Errock turned to Noia. “As a favor, because I’m getting old and such things bother me, I ask those at my table not to smoke during dinner. After dinner it is okay, because if Brigadier Markos lights up his pipe, I open the door to the outside! At least tonight it’s mild.”

“Earlier,” Brigadier Markos said, as he started to load his pipe, “I messaged Count Errock that Pinyon and the Ruthani weren’t likely to catch the raiders. This afternoon, I’m pleased to report the raiders lost a ship trying to pass into the ocean from the Mud River and another ran aground.

“While Pinyon cannot be sure, he doubts that more than seventy-five men were aboard the ship that escaped and perhaps as few as fifty. Oh, how the God-King will wail and lament, losing two of three of his ships and nine of ten of his men!”

Count Errock nodded in appreciation, then said, “In related news, the High King has reported to me some interesting information about the goings-on in the God-Kingdom. It has always been nearly impossible to learn anything about it. The war pulled the veil apart, a bit, but the unrest south of the border has continued to keep it difficult.

“Now however, things are settling down, and the refugee stream has slowed considerably. And, as we can see, they are becoming more aggressive against us.

“This will interest you the most, Brigadier Markos, because of something you said two years ago at the battle of Three Hills.”

“Sir?” Markos inquired, curious.

“The High King was much taken with the young man who’d been your junior aide at the battle and who then went on to become such a fearsome man with a mortar!”

“He’s Captain Legios now, a very capable officer,” Markos told them. “It is always nice to know that you are a good judge of character!”

“Indeed so! The High King was curious about the young man’s impressions of his first battle, plus the natural curiosity of a king about a commander who takes an attack by an enemy five times his number and counts his casualties in the tens and those of his enemies in the thousands.”

“Lieutenant Gryllos,” Noia said, the words escaping her mouth. “He was also unbelievable.”

“He did very well, Noius,” Brigadier Markos told her. “But I admit more curiosity just now about what Captain Legios had to say about me, Count Errock.”

Count Errock laughed. “Aye, it’s always like that isn’t it? We hold ourselves in high esteem, but we yearn to hear the honest opinion that good men hold of us.

“He said that the God-King’s artillery followed close on the heels of their infantry, wheeled into position and prepared quickly and started firing on your guns. You told Captain Legios that you hoped that the man who commanded those guns died in the first volley of your guns, because the man was good at what he did and you could ill afford a man like that to oppose you.”

Markos nodded. “I remember saying something like that, yes.”

“Galzar didn’t smile on your wish, Brigadier. The man lived. Moreover, he was a first cousin of the God-King, a young man of about twenty-five. You have no idea how competent he was–because now Xyl, as he styles himself, has overthrown the heirs of the God-King.”

There was silence in the room as everyone digested that. Noia was surprised when Manistewa spoke. “Xyl was their commander of artillery at Three Hills. After the battle, General Denethon ordered all of the guns spiked. Xyl agreed, but instead of destroying his guns, he destroyed about half, then put the ones that remained into hidden positions.

“Captain-General Hestophes expected to brush aside the skirmishers that had been left behind and then quickly catch up with those who had fled so he could destroy them. Instead, a volley of grape shot sent his van back, dozens of men dead. Hestophes had to bring up his own artillery and then spend half a day breaking the rear guard under Xyl. At the end, Xyl did spike his surviving guns, and then took off into the brush.

“We don’t know what happened after that, but a moon later he commanded at Zimapan, and when that city revolted, he retreated further south. At the end of the war it was he who led the last attack on Zimapan, in seeming defiance of the God-King. The God-King told the High King that he had ordered the attack halted and withdrawn.

“In any event, the High King rode to the city’s defense, and only when the High King got close, did Xyl turn his soldiers around, saying that the cowardly God-King had snatched victory from him at the last heartbeat.”

Manistewa craned forward to look at Count Errock. “One other interesting thing about Xyl. The captain who commanded the security at the God-King’s pyramid when Gortan, Vertax, Lion and Hestius came calling is now the captain of the new king’s personal guard. Not the usual reward for failing in your duty to protect your king.”

“A young, ambitious and above all, capable king,” Count Errock said sadly, shaking his head. “We could ask for no worse an outcome.”

“The God-King’s daughter-in-law was not there at the pyramid the day her husband and sons died,” Manistewa went on. “She managed to install herself as Queen-Regent, the crown passing through her daughter to her daughter’s first-born son. Xyl was careful to proclaim loyalty up until the last heartbeat, when he took the survivors of the original God-King’s family. But, beware of this: instead of taking them up the pyramid and sacrificing them to the memory of her husband, he had them shot in the main square of Tenosh.”

“Add ruthless and patient to his other virtues,” Brigadier Markos told them. “Not a good combination at all.”

The silence that followed lasted several heartbeats.

Manistewa grimaced. “Worse still, Brigadier. As the blood of the woman and her daughter was running along the cobbles, Xyl started killing all of the priests and some of the nobles. They didn’t have their hearts cut out–they were simply stood up against the nearest wall and shot. King Xyl says there will be no more sacrifices on the pyramids. Never again.”

The room was silent for a long time after that.

Count Errock shook himself and spoke, “Sergeant Trilium, Tanda Sa, Corporal Noius. The day after tomorrow at dawn, I’m sending Lady Becky east for her appointment with the High King. If you wish, you may accompany her.”

“That would be good, Count Errock,” Trilium replied. Noia managed a nod.

“It will be a grand adventure,” Tanda Sa exclaimed.

Count Errock smiled slightly. “I hope so. You’ll travel southeast through the lands of the Lost Ruthani, then east to the new city the High King is building, called Kingstown, well north of the Big River. A moon, more or less. Kingstown is the current terminus of the steam puller road. From there, you’ll be two days from the ferry over the Great River at Xiphlon, and another moon-quarter to Hostigos. In less than two moons you will travel 2700 miles!”

Noia heard a sound like a suppressed giggle from Lady Becky. She watched the younger girl carefully, but there was little or no expression on her face. Still, Noia noted it down, curious herself.

Later the next day she had a private audience with Count Errock. “Lady Noia, I am sorry for all this subterfuge,” he explained.

She shrugged. “It has to be that they know I’m here. It would be too much of a coincidence if the first attack by the new God-King’s forces was against a convoy I was traveling with. We traveled at the normal pace; there was only one day where we lost a half day. I think it was a mistake on Captain Landsruhl’s part, because he did not understand the desert.”

“That is my thought, too. If he’d been on time, like as not you’d have faced all five hundred of them a mile or so short of the remount post, in the mid-afternoon. So they hatched this plan to split their force and try to wipe out both Captain Landsruhl’s convoy and Lieutenant Gryllos’ garrison at the remount station at the same time.

“One of the dangers of having an aggressive and daring leader is the temptation on the part of his subordinates to show off for their leader.”

Noia nodded.

“By continuing with the hoax,” the count went on, “perhaps we will fool them, perhaps not. We will assume not, but hope for.”

“Count Errock, may I ask you a personal question?”

“Of course, Lady Noia.”

“Why do you trust Manistewa, the Northern Ruthani? They are in open revolt, the vast majority of them, against King Freidal and they raid your king as well.”

“I have watched him, as I watch all men, Lady Noia. As I watch all women. Treachery used to be commonplace, back in the days when the priests of Styphon stirred us against each other. The High King has shown us a better way, one that honorable men have no trouble accepting and following.

“The High King has asked tasks of Manistewa, and he has delivered, frequently at peril of his life. He has done as the High King has asked of him, meeting the High King’s requests for information.

“For all of that, Tanda Havra doesn’t like him much, either. Or Lady Judy, Lady Becky or even your queen. Tuck keeps his own counsel, but if his wife doesn’t like Manistewa, I suspect the duke doesn’t either.

“Nonetheless, it was information volunteered by Manistewa that made it possible to take Xipototec, Manistewa’s man in Xipototec was one of those who killed the God-King–a brave, if fell, deed.

“In short, while the man seems to be dislikable, that isn’t sufficient for me not to trust him.”

“I was curious, sir. I know of no reason to dislike or distrust him, except that I don’t.”

“My lady wife stood on the walls of Outpost and called to your King’s men to shoot her in the nose. She was quite graphic in her verbal challenge, regarding their man-parts and their inability to shoot straight. Yet, if my wife sees a spider in her bath, she shrieks and calls for help.”

Noia understood him. Everyone had their personal likes and dislikes, even if they didn’t make sense.

“Count Errock...” Noia wasn’t sure how to say what she had to say. “At the waterhole, I never fired. Not even once. Trilium did and killed a man. My sergeant did, standing no further from me than you sit now, and he killed a man. We withdrew to the center, crawling on our bellies. That was when Lieutenant Gryllos came.

“Our attackers had emptied their rifles at our horses, not even bothering with us. The lieutenant attacked them when they were reloading. Instantly, the battle was changed. We were just getting over the shock when the survivors on the other side of the waterhole emptied their rifles at us again and charged. Our soldiers started to fire in reply, but Gryllos was too quick once again; another bugle call and the rest of them were dead. Not even a finger width, Lord Count. I have never heard of the like in my life. Yet I saw it with my own eyes.

“And then they bundled me up and put me to help with the wounded, out of danger. Even Trilium went and watched your mortars shoot, instead of exposing himself in the battle.”

Count Errock was silent for a moment. “When I was a lad, with only blonde stubble on my cheeks, a bully challenged me, claiming I had no honor, that my family had no honor. I did not know then, how to deflect such challenges, so I agreed to the duel the bully wanted.

“My father was furious. At me, as well as at the bully. He drilled me for a full day, Lady Noia. A full day. He would stand next to me and scream, ‘Turn!’ and I was supposed to turn so I faced sideways. Twice I did it wrong, twice his fists knocked me to the ground.

“That night he took me to a place where young men sometimes go to relieve themselves of their virginity. ‘Here, drink,’ my father told me, ‘eat well, make love to a beautiful woman, for tomorrow you will die.’”

Count Errock chuckled, not something Noia would have expected. “I ate heartily and drank even more heartily and promptly fell asleep somewhere around my second cup of unwatered wine, even before I had looked upon the women.

“I woke fresh and ready the next morning, and at dawn I faced the bully. I turned and he fired before he stopped moving. I felt the bullet brush my nose; it hurt, it was that close.

“And yet, there I stood, my pistol unfired. He looked at me and saw death. I lifted my pistol and took aim, and he started to reload. I shot the fireseed horn from his hand, Lady Noia. Worse for him, I called the shot. Worse for him, I broke some of his fingers when the horn was wrenched from his grip.

“He stood there, rooted to the spot; in our dueling system, once you turn, you can’t move your feet and his fireseed was a dozen feet away. If he’d have moved to reach it, his second was oath bound to shoot the coward.

“I called for him to hold up his hand, and sure enough, his hand was bloody. ‘Blood has been shed,’ I called, ‘my honor is satisfied.’”

“He was lucky.”

Count Errock shook his head. “Not so lucky as all that. A year after the High King ascended to the throne, the man who had challenged me ‘conspired with’ Duke Skranga. When he learned the truth, knowing he was a dead man, he walked into a tavern and slandered Queen Rylla. The High King heard of it and went to him. Instead of challenging him to a duel, the High King punched him and called him a coward who only had the courage to attack a woman and then only with words.

“The man challenged Kalvan to a duel. He was insane, you understand? Kings don’t fight duels, their champions do. So he faced Lord Verkan, who decreed rifles at a thousand paces.”

“A thousand paces?” The thought was almost a joke.

“Yes, a thousand paces. Lord Verkan’s first shot was as close as the man’s first shot had been to me.”

“At a thousand paces?”

“Lady Noia, at Three Hills, Brigadier Markos’ men opened fire at a mile, more than half again a thousand paces. They didn’t kill many, but it was enough to set doubt in the minds of their attackers. The man’s first shot at Lord Verkan struck sparks halfway between them.

“The man turned to run, ignoring the penalty; he’d paid his second not to shoot. Except Duke Skranga stood next to the second, telling him he was pardoned if he did as custom required or Lord Verkan’s next bullet would come for him if he didn’t. The second’s next shot took the bully in the belly.

“Of course, it was Duke Skranga. Less than a heartbeat later, Lord Verkan’s bullet tore the bully’s throat out, even as he was starting to fall from the other shot.”

The count grinned at Noia. “That one time...in a duel, no less...is the only time I’ve ever fired a weapon against an enemy. Lady Noia, our duty isn’t to personally kill our enemies; it is our duty to inspire and lead our loyal followers to do it on our behalf.”

Noia was silent, not sure what to say. “Lady Noia, two questions. You say you tended to the wounded?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you a fine rifle shot?”

“I’m okay, but not as good as the others. We practiced many evenings. I was in the lower third of the marksmen. Trilium was very upset with me.”

“Lady, someone must tend to the wounded. I can’t speak for your king, but in our army those that can’t shoot straight become horse holders and tend the wounded in battle. Or become officers.” He laughed after the last.

Noia grimaced. “It isn’t a pleasant thing to contemplate.”

“Then contemplate your duty, Lady Noia. You will find that far harder than marking a target, whether or not that target is shooting back.”

Noia bowed her head.

“Sometimes in battle, Lady Noia, small things mean so very much, then and later. Have you heard of Lady Judy’s defense of Tarr-Dombra?”

Noia shook her head.

“Lady, Tarr-Dombra is a stark fortress in old Hostigos. As stark a fortress as exists. By all means, visit it if you get a chance.”

It was on the tip of Noia’s tongue to ask how Lady Judy had gotten to Old Hostigos, but realized she didn’t understand and so kept silent.

“Tarr-Dombra was what the Army of Mexico called a strong point on their left at the Battle of Tarr-Dombra. Tarr-Dombra commanded a steep rocky ridge, with only a narrow path up the ridge that led to it and an even narrower path that led back to the main position. It was solid stone, with a firing slit barely high enough for a man to slide through on his belly.

“Lady Judy commanded Lord Tuck’s Field Intelligence unit; those who go among the dead after a battle to seek information. She drew her soldiers from the young people of Xipototec. Supposedly, they were to be sixteen or seventeen years old. Except Lady Judy was only fourteen, so some of those with her were her age as well, because she would not deny such.

“There were thirty of them, including her and one of my sergeants. You’ve heard of him, Sergeant Hestius, one of those who killed the God-King. Lord Tuck reinforced them with sixty of my men. Not just any men, but men of Outpost. Not summer soldiers, but men I knew and worked with every day for years.

“The God-King attacked Lord Tuck with more than forty thousand soldiers. First, they essayed a demonstration attack against Tarr-Dombra. Lady Noia, the God-King’s General Thanos sent a thousand men against Tarr-Dombra. Fifteen people survived in that chamber.”

Noia blinked. The stuff of heroes! And they had been led by a woman younger than her? And they had won?

“Lady Noia, Lord Tuck wanted me to understand one thing about that desperate battle. They had no hope, do you understand? None!”

Noia nodded numbly. Could she face something like that? Sure, in the bright clear light of day, with enemies miles and miles away, who wouldn’t say yes?

“Lady Judy had her soldiers pull their dead and wounded back, and told them to lay the dead to rest with honor, and succor the wounded as they could, even if it was just a squeeze of the hand. They found the time, Lady, to do those things in circumstances so horrible the mind can barely imagine them.

“I am a soldier. Had I been there, I’d have been at the parapet, directing my soldiers to kill our enemies. I would have decided there was nothing I could do for the dead and little time to spare, if any, for the wounded. I would have fought valiantly, and I’m sure, I’d have died along with those with me.

“Lady Judy fought with a shovel after her rifle was broken. And still she and her people had time to care for their dead and wounded.

“Lady Judy still commands Lord Tuck’s Field Intelligence unit and they still number thirty. I send the best soldier I have, to be their sergeant. The Ruthani have fights about who will serve with Lady Judy; they revere her nearly as much as they revere Tanda Havra. They have a waiting list in Tecpan of those of the Mexicotál who would serve in that unit. There are more than fifty thousand names on the list.”

Noia shook her head, uncertain what to say.

“So, tending the wounded is not dishonorable, eh?” he finished.

“No, it isn’t. I’m sorry, Lord Count.”

“You are young yet. War, Lady Noia, is a hard and sometimes swift teacher...if you can survive. You’ve had a few hard lessons yourself. You have to learn even from victories.”

She bowed her head. “I will try to justify the trouble everyone is going to in my name.”

“As I’m sure you’ve heard repeatedly, you understand how important it is for you to come back with the knowledge you will gain from the High King?”

She nodded.

“Yes. Duke Tuck has no ships that can fight even a transport of the God-King. Your king is nearly as helpless. If their spies know about you coming here, their intelligencers will know about the ships the High King is building.

“So, you will not only learn how to build such ships, but how to fight them. The High King says that if you prove suitable, he’ll give you such a ship to command and a crew. A year from now, you’ll be able to return home. First here, then to Baytown.

“Any man of your crew who comes west will be well rewarded. They won’t volunteer, even so, if they lack confidence in you.”

Noia swallowed. She had wondered what the price for all of these people’s help was going to be. She’d never imagined this.

“In Baytown you will go over the plans with master ship builders. Your king will start building warships at once. Someone will have to be available to train the captains, the officers and the crews. You, if you’re suitable.”

There it was, her heart’s desire. Many counts had won names for themselves on the battlefield and had gone on to greatness. She could do it on the sea, as those others had done on land.

She met Count Errock’s gaze. “I have a duty to my people, to my king. Those duties war in my breast, as small as they are...breasts, I mean.”

“Lady Noia, one day you will meet Lord Tuck. I wish you well. I mean no offense when I say you’re plain. Lady, Lord Tuck’s curse is also to be ordinary. If you passed him in a crowd and knew him not, you’d never know you passed such a man.”

“I am what I am. I don’t think I can ever take pride in how I look. So far all I have managed is to run and hide successfully. That has to end some time.”

“If you look to the future, if you look to your duty, Lady Noia, your pride will not have anything to complain about.”

After he left, she threw herself down on her bed and slept restlessly, until it was time for dinner. This time dinner was a few of them, on a balcony looking out over Outpost. Only Noia, Trilium, Tanda Sa, the count and his wife, her brother and Lady Becky were there.

II

Gryllos had been told to stay with the wagons until more horses arrived. That meant they spent a day getting the most important items loaded back on the wagons, then they turned to the rest, taking a little more time. He’d been surprised that the soldiers that Brigadier Markos had left behind were all commanded by lieutenants junior to him, which meant he stayed in command of the Hostigi contingent.

Then came the news from the southwest that the Ruthani had judged wrong and had indeed caught up with the retreating soldiers, after they boarded their ships. There had been three ships indeed and two were destroyed before they could escape.

There were big grins on everyone’s faces that night and Gryllos and Captain Landsruhl decreed they should have a party. One of the surviving barrels of wine was tapped, there were a lot of dead horses to provide meat and everyone had a thoroughly good time, except the dozen men who had the guard.

Gryllos noticed that Captain Landsruhl didn’t get drunk, as he didn’t either. Leem came and went as he pleased, doing what, Gryllos had no notion.

It was close on midnight and the merriment was dying down when Gryllos got his brainstorm. He found Captain Landsruhl writing a report, while sitting on a rock, his back to the fire, so he could read what he was writing.

“Captain, I have an idea. I’m not sure about you, but I find the prospect of sitting on my backside doing nothing for the next half or three quarters of a moon to be disturbing.”

“There’s not much we can do without horses.”

“But we have horses, about two hundred and fifty now. If we put fifty men up on horses, hitched up the rest of the beasts to wagons, we could move a sixth of your wagons to the remount post.”

“The post is reported destroyed, Lieutenant. What would it accomplish?”

“We’d be a half day closer to Outpost. Me and you both.”

The captain thought about it for a bit. “I see some problems. Splitting our command...”

“Yes, but we’ve heard from the Ruthani that they’ve disposed of our enemies. If there were more out there, they’d have seen them. They haven’t, so for right now, they’re not a factor.

“Still, we could put a man on each wagon besides your drovers and we could leave sixty men to guard the wagons at the remount post. Brigadier Markos checked and they didn’t poison the well, didn’t in fact, burn the well house, either.” Gryllos laughed. “The first time I saw it, I thought it was the latrine.”

“And then?” Captain Landsruhl asked.

“The wagons leave at daybreak. Half the drovers, all of the teams and the mounted escort return here by dusk. The next day, another team of drovers and escorts take them out again. We’ll probably have to rest the horses every third day, but long before the relief gets here, we’ll all be at the remount post. It won’t be much, but it will be progress. With this many men, we can make some preliminary repairs to the corrals and be ready for the new horses.”

Captain Landsruhl made a face. “I should ask permission.”

“So should I. But I’m not going to, because as far as I’m concerned, this is just realigning our forces.”

“It is a risk, and for what? A half day’s progress?”

“It’s a risk, yes. And yes, not much progress. Nonetheless, I’d rather tell Brigadier Markos I’d made some progress rather than none. Even if he’s expecting none.”

Captain Landsruhl stared into the night. “Getting the corrals repaired; that would be a good thing, would it not?”

“A very good thing. Otherwise our reinforcements are going to have to join us getting them done when they arrive, delaying them.”

“We’ll do it!” Landsruhl said. He glanced at the last vestiges of the party. “Not tomorrow, though.”

“Not tomorrow,” Gryllos agreed. “The day after.”

III

Four days later a message came from Brigadier Markos, suggesting that Gryllos send a party to the remount post to start repairs. He and Captain Landsruhl grinned like little children sneaking one past their parents. Gryllos sent his reply. “Will comply.”

He’d sent Lieutenant Smyla to command the post the second day and so later the same day Gryllos sent, “Smyla in place, work in progress.”

Three days later, when only a few of the wagons remained at the waterhole, Brigadier Markos appeared with two hundred men at the remount post. By that time Captain Landsruhl was the senior officer at the waterhole, while Gryllos commanded at the post.

The brigadier looked around at the work that had been done, then motioned for Gryllos to walk with him. They went to a small rise to the south. Two of the large cacti stood sentinel and provided a little shade.

“I see you’ve moved up, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. Captain Landsruhl will be here tomorrow with the last of the wagons.”

“You only made one mistake, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?”

“Lieutenant, your commander should never be surprised by what you do. Not in front of his men, not in front of his other commanders. I have to message Count Errock in a short while and tell him that the convoy is here and safe.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I just wanted to be diligent.”

“And you expected me to say no to your plan?”

“I wasn’t sure, sir.”

The brigadier turned to Gryllos and reached out and took off the two pips on Gryllos’ collar and rubbed them between his fingers. Abruptly, he snapped them apart.

“I’m not sure either, Lieutenant,” the brigadier told him. “Not knowing what’s happening is unpleasant, isn’t it?”

Gryllos stood straight, shamed to the core. “Yes, sir. I swear, sir, it will never happen again.”

The brigadier tossed the pieces of the insignia into a bush. Without a word he turned and looked around them.

“We’re in for the fight of our lives again, Gryllos. Do you understand that?”

Gryllos wanted to sob. There were no rank tabs on his tunic, and no rank mentioned when the brigadier spoke to him.

“Sir, even if I’m only a trooper, I’ll do my duty.”

“You didn’t do it here, not at the end. Why should I trust you?”

Gryllos could promise his word, but while he hadn’t violated any oaths, he hadn’t done his duty either.

“Sir, I learn from my mistakes.”

“You went south with us as far as Xiphlon. Do you remember my junior aide?”

“No, sir.”

“He was a fine young man, his father was a baron near Agrys City, in Glarth. Do you understand what my orders were and are still, Gryllos?”

“That the skirmishers aren’t to be destroyed, sir.”

“That and there is another injunction I have to obey. I cannot be closer to the point of contact than a thousand yards. Only Captain-General Hestophes or the High King can change that order. So, whenever the Sixth Mounted fought as we went south, I was in the rear, usually well to the rear.

“That changed at Three Hills. There, the captain-general ordered the Sixth to occupy a hill and hold it until relieved. I took that, rightly, as a release from my usual orders. So I made the Sixth ready for the coming attack, with my command post centered in the position, with a good field of view for the coming battle.

“That evening, my junior aide was struck with the ague, Gryllos. He lay shivering in his blankets. The priest of Galzar told me to my face the man was unfit for battle. My Uncle Wolf laughed. ‘Win today and tomorrow and he will be fine!’”

Markia glanced at Gryllos from the corner of his eye. “Did you know Ensign Legios? One of the messenger ensigns?”

This time Gryllos nodded. “Sir, he was one of the men who pulled me from the Great River.”

“And went on from there to do well at Three Hills, and then very, very well in the pursuit of General Denethon. He was, in fact, sent by the High King to watch Denethon surrender, as the High King had also been impressed by the young man. Legios stood where my junior aide should have stood had he been able to stand at Three Hills.”

Gryllos had heard the story, often in fact. Just one more battle tale of the Sixth Mounted!

“You did not do as you should have, Gryllos. At Three Hills my aide took counsel of his fears and could not leave his blankets. Here, Gryllos, you took counsel from either your fears or a childish desire to surprise me. I’ve heard the tales of your bravery from men I respect utterly, so I’ll not ascribe your actions to fear.”

Gryllos found he could speak. “What would you have me do, sir?”

“You’re a brave man, you’re a competent leader in combat, and you show initiative. I’ll promote you captain of course.”

Gryllos looked at the brigadier, confused. Brigadier Markos clapped him on the back, much harder than usual. “You’ll not want to surprise me again, eh, Captain?”

“No, sir.” Was he hearing right? Or had wishful thinking addled his brain?

“In half a moon I’ll send word of a meeting we’ll have at Mogdai. Leave Smyla in charge here. I have, by the way, a another pip for him, too.”

“He deserves it, sir.”

“The meeting will be to discuss the near future. We now have some solid intelligence on what is going on in the God-King’s lands. It isn’t pleasant to hear.”

“Yes, sir.”

The brigadier dug into a pouch and pulled out three pips, tied together. “One last thing, Captain. What is given can be taken away. There will not be a second chance, Captain!”

“I understand, sir!”

“One last thing, Captain. This time, really the last. The additional men you have will remain here another moon. Then some militia will arrive to replace them. Those militia soldiers have been called up for a full year.”

Gryllos nodded in understanding. Men who took the High King’s bounty agreed to serve a moon a year in the army after their initial enlistment was completed...unless you agreed to a full year, in which case your service requirement with the High King was finished at the end of the year of service. That was where a half million soldiers had sprung into existence from for the last war.

Everyone said it would be much harder this time, since a third of those who could be called up now had an excuse not to answer the call.

Brigadier Markos had been watching Gryllos, who recognized that he was missing something. “Sir?”

“You will want to be particularly careful with how you deal with enlistment terms of your soldiers after this. I would suggest you ask the soldiers what theirs are, and respect their choices.”

IV

Captain Legios rode into Tecpan at the head of the Heavy Weapons Company, four hundred men strong. The long line of soldiers and wagons never failed to make Legios pleased and excited. And when he saw Lady Maya waving from an elevated balcony attached to a house near the city gate, he restrained himself from waving back.

The formalities of seeing to the bivouac of his soldiers and reporting to the countess took a palm width. He tried not to rush when he was free to go, but it was a difficult thing. Maya met him in the main square and he grinned at her and she grinned at him.

“Captain, tell me you will be here at least tonight!”

“Yes. Tonight and several more.”

“Good! I told my mother we should have a banquet to celebrate our good fortune and the very nice house we found here! Please! Be our guest tonight!”

“Of course,” he said, grinning.

She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “I see that short little lieutenant of yours headed our way,” she whispered in his ear.

He grinned. “I will be there tonight. Where?”

She told him and he turned to Short Mortar, while Maya walked with stately grace away. Short Mortar watched her go, along with Legios. “Sir, if you don’t mind my saying so, I thought my brother had used up all the luck in the universe to land his wife. But that woman, Captain, tells me that there’s a lot more luck out there than I ever imagined. I pray the gods smile upon me like they’ve smiled on you and Big!”

Legios laughed. “What do you need, Lieutenant?”

“The countess wants to talk to you, to me, my brother and about two dozen others in a palm width, in her presence chamber. If you’re not busy.”

Legios shook his head. “Lady Maya and her mother moved here from Xipototec and they’re having a little party tonight to celebrate. Considering the way Lady Talu likes to throw parties, I imagine it will still be going on at dawn tomorrow.”

The two men smiled at each other, and then turned back to the palace.

Legios found a seat in the middle of the room. There were dozens of officers, some he recognized and some he didn’t.

Lady Judy came in. “My husband,” she told them bluntly, “is about a half moon from returning, however the duke has asked me to carry out a patrol before then.

“It will be a simple march, south to about fifty miles north of Zacateca, then east paralleling our boundary, then north to meet Count Gamelin and his men. We leave at dawn, two days after tomorrow.”

Her eyes swept the room. “The duke believes that there is not much chance of King Xyl mounting much mischief this year. He has, after all, bitten off a very large mouthful. Lord Tuck does think, however, that if we aggressively patrol now, that next year we will be in better shape to dissuade the new king in Tenosh from coming north.

“It took the High King four years to defeat his enemies and another two years to settle things down. He also took the time to stomp on an incursion of the God-King while he was at it.

“At any rate, Duke Tuck and the High King both feel that an aggressive posture this year will pay dividends next year. And every day we delay King Xyl from turning his eyes north is to our advantage.”

She waved around the room. “We’ll have some of the High King’s cavalry with us, as well as the more customary Captain Legios and his Heavy Weapons Company. We will take the First Southern Artillery regiment as well, plus the First Tecpan Mounted Infantry regiment. I want you to tell your men what we’re going to be doing and why. I want you to instill in them the highest confidence in you, their leaders. Again, this will pay us a great benefit when the fighting actually comes.”

There were more details, and Legios made quite a few notes. Finally the meeting broke up, and the three mortar officers returned to their encampment.

Legios stood on a wagon bed and addressed the men. “We’re going south, men!”

There were loud cheers and Big Mortar laughed and barked, “Not that far south!”

There was a chorus of laughter and Legios felt immensely proud of commanding such men as these.

“In a couple of days we’ll head out towards Zacateca, then north to meet Count Gamelin.” He didn’t go into much detail, but enough to make sure that the men knew what to prepare for.

Then he found his room at the inn he stayed in, while he was here in Tecpan, had a hasty bath drawn, and afterwards, put on his cleanest uniform.

The rest of the night was a blur of happy memories. Talking to Maya, dancing with Maya, walking with Maya under the stars, then kissing Maya under those same stars. He finally dragged himself away, embarrassingly close to dawn.

He slept like a log. He was ashamed when he woke, because it was close to High Sun. No one had come to wake him, which had to be the work of the Mortar Brothers. He shook his head, hastily preparing to go out and command his men.

He had a faint throb of a headache, a mild feeling of unease in his stomach. Ah, but the memory of kissing Maya! That was glorious! He’d told her that they would march south in a few days and after that her kisses had been hungry. “We don’t have much time, then!” she told him. “Let’s make the best of what we have!”

Oh! What kisses!

He went out of the inn and found the company listening to a lecture on field sanitation from Big Mortar. He chuckled to himself. True, field sanitation was a very important subject, but it was something he’d heard a thousand times and remembered each of them! 

Short Mortar grinned at him. “The difference, Captain, between a newly married man and a man in love: one gets up before noon, the other goes back to bed over and over again.”

Legios cracked a smile. Over and over? He’d be happy with once!

Short Mortar laughed. “I have one advantage, Captain, over you and my brother. In a moon quarter, part of my anatomy is not going to be turning blue, missing the attentions of a fine, fine woman!”

Legios shook his head. “That’s because that part’s been blue for moons already, Short.”

The two men shared an easy laugh.

Legios spent most of the afternoon dealing with administrative details, of which there seemed to be an unending stream. Just before he was going to call it a day, Short appeared, grinning, Maya trailing him.

“Captain,” Maya told him, “my mother is having a friend over to dinner. It would be uncomfortable for her, if it was just the three of us. Could you join us for a very private dinner?”

Legios couldn’t help it. His heart, and other parts, leaped to attention. “Yes, of course! I’d be delighted!”

“Come as soon as you’re free!” she said gaily, then turned and left.

Short Mortar came in and Legios explained where he was going to be. Short nodded. “I hear Lieutenant Storax, the Mexicotál scout lieutenant for Lady Judy, is courting Lady Talu. He’s a little large himself.”

Legios remembered Lady Tula’s breasts the one day he’d seen them. He smiled, wishing the lieutenant well. He would be content with a feast; it need not be so sumptuous!

It was a delightful dinner. Beyond delightful! The servants were unobtrusive; the lights were dim and the music soft and romantic. He and Maya shared a couch, and both ate sparingly and spent a lot of time kissing instead.

Finally, he could take no more, and told her he had the early duty in the morning.

He walked back to the inn in the hot night air, sweating profusely. True enough, he was a respected captain of the High King, and was entitled to considerable land when he retired, but that was years away. Trying to support someone like Maya on a captain’s pay would be foolish. Even if she was willing to push ahead, he was not. He would not allow her to be put in the position between marrying a poor captain and being poor or face the scandal of being pregnant without a husband. And since he was associated with her, if it became known, he’d suffer for it, if they weren’t engaged.

No, staying calm, staying in control, and above all, keeping things firmly in hand–so to speak–was a more rational alternative!

The next morning he was up with the sun, bringing a smile from Short Mortar. “Are you still welcome at Lady Maya’s home?” he asked.

Legios frowned. “Of course!”

“Ah, discretion is the better part of valor, eh!”

Legios flushed, having trouble imagining that he was so transparent. Around High Sun he realized it wasn’t so much he was transparent, but that he wasn’t the first man to be in this position.

He was sitting, half drowsing, reading a report on the number of saddles and other bits and pieces of harness that were assigned to the Heavy Weapons company when the drums began to sound and the bugles blow.

He was up in an instant, racing for the palace.

Lady Judy was blunt. “A hundred miles to the southeast, soldiers of King Xyl, several hundred of them, attacked a party of traders headed to Zacateca. We are going out to meet them. I want you and your people ready to go in a palm width.”

The artillery captain shook his head. “My lady, we are far advanced in our preparations to march the day after tomorrow. This afternoon? Not all of the horses we will require are in Tecpan! They are still a half day north! I could only take a few small guns, and a limited amount of fireseed, because I don’t have the stock for the supply wagons, either!”

Judy grinned and turned to Legios. “And Heavy Weapons Company?”

“My lady, my men and I will be ready to march in half a palm width, with all of our weapons and all of our ammunition!” It was hard not to keep the sheer pride out of his voice.

“Does anyone think that sixty mortars won’t ruin the day of a couple of hundred of King Xyl’s soldiers? Captain Legios, we will march with your mortars. Captain Leptos, the artillery will stay here.”

The artillery officer looked thunderstruck, but all knew that it was impossible to keep the thousand horses needed to move the guns close to the city. There simply wasn’t enough feed.

“Lieutenant Storax,” Countess Judy turned to her scout commander. “A finger width?”

“Half that, Countess!”

“Go now, then. Keep me informed.”

The man jumped up, saluted and ran towards the door. Legios watched him go. Maybe he’d made an early night of it, too, he thought, or he was more used to such things! He looked fresh and eager to go.

“Logistos!” Lady Judy went to the next critical officer.

“My lady! We are prepared to march within a palm width!”

Legios lifted an eyebrow at that. Usually the baggage train needed as many horses at the artillery. And they were already ready?

“Thank you, logistos! Go make sure! A palm width!”

The man saluted and dashed away as well.

Lady Judy stood looking at them. The Alcalde, her civilian second-in-command, showed up in the doorway. “I came as quickly as I could, Countess,” he told her. “The heat of the afternoon...” he spread his hands. He’d been napping, Legios thought.

“Kiliwia, I am leaving the city to Lady Lydia–you report to her.”

Everyone in the room turned to look at the countess. Always before, when she and her husband were both out of the city, command had gone to Kiliwia.

“Kiliwia, you are the head of the civil government. I know it offends some of the people of Tecpan that there are military leaders from the High King placed above them. I swear to you, it will not always be so. For now, be patient and work with Lady Lydia.”

Legios didn’t envy the man. Being placed under a girl of sixteen summers couldn’t possibly be a comfortable thing! On the other hand, speaking out against someone that age was speaking out against Countess Judy. He looked at the countess, cool, regal and assured and nodded to himself. He, for one, had no problems serving with her!

Kiliwia nodded with alacrity. “As you say, so shall it be, my Lady!”

Lady Judy smiled to the assembled officers. “Unless I’m wrong, you all have a lot better things to be doing than sitting here listening to me!”

There were laughs, but men were headed away almost at once.


	9. Rapid Travel

I

After dinner, Count Errock spoke privately to those who were going east. “The man who commands the soldiers is Captain Andromus. He is a bit of a prig and very conceited. His sister is one of Lady Becky’s foremost students and will be assuming many of her duties while she is gone. Lady Becky has a formidable weapon there, and, Lady Becky, you have my permission to use it. Moreover, both Lady Becky and Lady Noia will have letters from me, proclaiming that they aren’t to be interfered with, that any problems are to be referred directly to the High King.

“You will be following the line of the new wire-that-talks. This is a secret of the High King–the wire works to Kingstown reliably, to Zimapan about half the time. We think the wire cutting is not so much enemy action as the desire for all that lovely copper wire. We haven’t tried to extend it to Tecpan or Xipototec. The signal mirrors work, although we expect them to be targeted eventually.

“We will deal with it. Already King Xyl’s raiders have suffered losses, and the Ruthani are sharpening their blades and going hunting. It won’t be pleasant what happens out there in the desert.

“To me it is clear that King Xyl wants to have some small victories against us that he can claim. I have mentioned this to Pinyon and Manistewa and they tell me that those small victories will cost him very much more than they gain him!

“None of that need concern you. From Kingstown east, there are no problems with the talking wire and none with the steam puller roads. That doesn’t mean you should let your guard down.”

There were final goodbyes and Noia told the count to add her particular thanks to Brigadier Markos and Lieutenant Gryllos when it was safe to do so.

II

Gryllos asked himself the question about the militia’s terms of service, but there had been no one he could ask about it in person.

The meeting Brigadier Markos called was in a long room in the Council Building of Mogdai village.

Gryllos knew a little of the story of the village, but hadn’t been prepared for the actuality. As they’d ridden into the village from the south, there was a tall bronze statue, many times higher than most men. An old man looked south, shading his eyes with one hand, a rifle held in his other hand.

From the base of the statue sixty-two normal-sized figures ran back in a double line towards the village, flanking the road. Those were the burial sites of the sixty-two men and women who had fallen at Mogdai when the God-King had attacked it at the start of the war. The front of each tomb was garnished with what was supposed to be a statue of the person who had died, each holding five sheaves of grain in their arms, symbolizing how many of their enemies they had killed. To make the numbers come out right, the village headman, who’d been named “Old Man,” had sixteen sheaves at his feet.

As impressive as that was, on the other side of the village, facing north, was a life-sized statue of a young woman, a teenager. She was shorter than most, but she stood ready, a rifle in her hands, two pistols in her belt. The inscription was simple. “Tazi, girl of Mogdai village. Of the People, for the People.”

Few statues had such a tortured heritage. Lady Judy had insisted on paying for it, but so had Lord Tuck. Tanda Havra had threatened death to any who denied her the honor, and the High King had tried to solve the whole affair by paying for the statue by himself, but not even the High King got his wish.

The High King was a clever and wise man, as all men knew, and it was his solution that was finally adopted when the survivors of Mogdai village agreed to the compromise. It was the men who had been sent north during the campaign who paid. Paying the money was supposed to extirpate the guilt of being sent away. It hadn’t worked.

No one minded those men paying for a statue, but no one who stayed safe in the lands of the Lost Ruthani would ever forgive the men who had been found wanting. Everyone knew the villages had stayed as safe as they had not because of the assistance of those men, but in spite of it.

One of Count Errock’s officers disobeyed his orders, ignored common sense and launched three hundred men into the main Zarthani force that had come to attack Outpost. It took barely a finger width to kill all those men, nearly doubling the casualties that Count Errock took at Outpost in the entire war.

The Lost Ruthani who refused their duty had done the same, in the south. They had died where there had been no need, where they could have stayed in cover and killed their enemies with impunity. Lord Tuck ended up losing more soldiers of Count Errock than he lost of the Ruthani, but that was because most of the Ruthani had been sent home. Nearly a hundred and fifty of the eleven hundred men who’d followed Lord Tuck into the field from Outpost were killed, but they helped kill nearly eighty thousand of their enemies. His Mexicotál soldiers had suffered several times more deaths than the Hostigi had, but instead of being angry, the duke’s subjects held him in reverential awe.

There were nearly a hundred officers and Ruthani leaders at the meeting. Count Errock and Brigadier Markos stood at the head of the table as everyone found their places.

Count Errock spoke first. “Two years ago some strangers came into our midst. Duke Tuck, Countess Judy are the ones most of you know. Queen Elspeth of Zarthan was one of them, as are Lady Lydia and Lady Becky. Lady Lydia is now in Tecpan, teaching music to the Mexicotál and helping the countess with the council of the city. Lady Becky has gone to the High King’s University in Hostigos, after founding a similar school here.

“We greeted those five as warmly as men should. We made them welcome, we succored and protected them. The results are clear for all men to see.

“Each helped in their own way to defeat our enemies. Our arms triumphed in the end.

“Now, once again we face enemies. This time, one old enemy who has been transformed into something new. Brigadier Markos, if you would, explain.”

The count sat down and Markos stood.

“There is a new King in Tenosh. His name is Xyl, and he styles himself the King of the Olmecha. He has ended the pyramid sacrifices and destroyed the priesthood of the old gods. He says he is a king, not a god.”

There was a gasp as the hundred watchers inhaled in stunned surprise.

“Xyl evidently conspired with some of the nobles and most of the senior military officers and overnight they arrested the old God-King’s daughter-in-law who had been acting as regent for her daughter. Practically overnight, the God-King’s regime collapsed.

“You’ve all heard how many people live in the Heartlands of our enemies. They are numberless. The God-King maintained millions of soldiers to put down any conceivable revolt of slaves and serfs.

“The nobles had accepted a woman over them as the best choice they had, even if it flew against all of their tradition. The daughter, they were told, would be married as soon as she was old enough, and her first son would be the new God-King.”

Brigadier Markos chuckled. “Except the daughter was just four summers. It was going to be a while before a son was born to her, and then grow to an age where he could reign in his own right. It won’t happen now. We’ve heard no word one way or the other, but they are likely dead.

“Before I go on, I’ll speak about King Xyl. It turns out that I’ve fought him once before. He commanded the artillery for Captain-General Oaxhan at Three Hills. The first day he commanded the batteries that took the Sixth Mounted under fire. I commented to Captain Legios as they opened fire that it would be a fortunate thing if the man who commanded those guns died in our first salvo, because he appeared to be quite competent.

“Xyl was indeed competent; worse, he survived our bombardment.

“The next day Captain-General Hestophes and his army smashed Oaxhan’s army. Oaxhan had envisaged a battle of movement and left most of his artillery in camp. Count Alkides proved once and for all that the proper place for artillery is not in camp.”

Everyone laughed at the joke.

“Oaxhan was executed for his arrogance and stupidity, and General Denethon assumed command. General Denethon is neither arrogant nor stupid. He ordered a few thousand men to hold against Hestophes’ advance, a few thousand more to go south to skirmish against the High King.

“Xyl stayed with the northern force and fought a fierce artillery duel with General Count Alkides. There is no better artilleryman in the world than Count Alkides, but Xyl fought him to a standstill until Xyl ran out of fireseed. Then Xyl spiked his surviving guns and vanished into the confusion of the battle.

“Afterwards, Xyl went to Zimapan and later had to withdraw the first time when the High King advanced on the town, and the people rose against the God-King. After the High King went west to deal with Denethon, Xyl marched north–after the truce had been signed. No one knows if he did so with the sanction of the God-King or not, but it seems odd that he could do such a thing without it. The God-King disavowed him, in any case. The High King counter-marched, and just before they would have met in battle, Xyl turned around and withdrew.

“Regardless of anything else, Xyl was the only one of the God-King’s generals who had any reputation after the war. As soon as the prisoners began to be returned, the ones taken at Three Hills, the God-King made Xyl the head of the army.

“Xyl was very active in putting down unrest, helping to keep things from falling apart. There doesn’t even seem to have been any burble after the God-King was killed.”

“Count Errock, back to you.” The brigadier sat down.

Count Errock stood up. “Plots are complicated things. It takes time to sound out possible adherents, and then to make sure all is in order before you strike. Combine that with what we perceive to have been the extreme fragility of the God-King’s regime after the war, and it must have been very difficult.

“Still, we knew they were rounding up and sending us the trouble makers, instead of executing them. At the time we weren’t sure what that was about, but now Xyl is taking credit for saving those lives from the pyramids. It’s probably even true.

“We now face a new king to the south. He is young, energetic, ambitious, and the thing Brigadier Markos was most concerned about: competent. We have to assume that all of his actions after Three Hills were designed to lead up to the situation today.

“It probably won’t be possible for him to do more than harass us this year.”

Gryllos was thinking hard about what he was hearing; hearing his name was unexpected. “Captain Gryllos.”

He looked at the count, mildly stunned. “Stand up, Captain.”

Gryllos stood, unsure why he was being singled out.

“Captain, then Lieutenant, Gryllos, commands one of the remount posts, he had fifty men and twenty-five civilians under his command. You’ve all heard that raiders came against one of the Zarthani convoys.

“Gryllos abandoned his post.”

There were rustles and stares; most of the men staring were confused. You don’t normally get promoted for abandoning your post.

“Senior Lieutenant Gryllos avoided an ambush, and then rode over sixty of the King Xyl’s Olmecha, killing them all without taking any casualties. The Olmecha commander was about as competent as my Captain Helmoth–that is, abysmal. A few heartbeats later Gryllos and troopers of the Sixth Mounted destroyed the other sixty members of the convoy ambush. One of the Zarthani soldiers was wounded, none of ours were, and all of our enemies in the first group were destroyed.

“However, he faced two groups.

“In obedience to the orders I dictated to Lieutenant Gryllos, he stood his ground with the convoy. His orders were clear and explicit and on my head lays the responsibility for what followed. He lost a third of his men, dead or wounded. The Zarthani lost similarly. But the lieutenant and the Zarthani convoy commander held the convoy intact, denied the Olmecha a victory. Moreover, the Olmecha waited too long to break contact and most of those who survived the raid died, along with two of their ships. Perhaps seventy-five of them withdrew south, out of six hundred. I don’t envy their commander trying to explain the defeat to his king. Assuming the commander survived.

“You may sit, Captain.”

Gryllos dropped down onto his chair, trying not to notice that all of the eyes at the table were directed at him. Counts and brigadiers don’t have to explain their orders; not to you, not to anyone. That Count Errock had done so meant that all would have to take the first part of the battle as Gryllos’ victory and the last part, duty to his orders. That it was true was one thing, but usually such things were left unsaid.

“This is what we’re going to face for the next year,” Count Errock said. “Raiders trying to slip through our patrols to attack weak points. Our patrols will have to be significantly more diligent and alert. We cannot afford to be weak anywhere. We cannot afford to be careless.

“Next year. I wish I could tell you more about what to expect next year. It’s hard not to be pessimistic. If King Xyl pacifies the slaves and serfs, and it seems likely he will succeed, he will be able to free up some of the ten million soldiers that garrison the Heartlands. Worse, we have word that he’s allowing slaves and serfs to enlist in the army, with a promise of freedom if they serve ten years plus four years in reserve.

“King Xyl has taken the heart of the grievances of the lower classes of his people and turned them upside down. Freedom–not just freedom from sacrifice, but full freedom is a tremendous lure. And from our point of view, that lure is doubly dangerous because they will become soldiers in order to gain that freedom.”

He paused and looked around the room. “The High King predicts that starting next year we’re going to face attacks by one to three million soldiers each year. For at least three years and perhaps as many as five.”

The room went deathly silent. “We have no certain knowledge of where the attacks will fall. Certainly the Duke of Mexico is going to face terrific raids and may likely draw the first major attack. King Freidal may experience raids and can expect an early attack. And we already know where they’ve raided first, don’t we? It was the first, but is unlikely to be the last.

“South of us we’re shielded to an extent by the Grand Marshal of the Army, Grand Marshal Hestophes. There is also the Duke of Mexico, Lord Tuck, and the Countess of Tecpan, Lady Judy. Those three are our shield. We will strengthen them as we can, but all the while we have to be aware of what happens if they fail.

“The same is true of Zarthan. They are our western shield, but King Xyl has continued the old God-King’s building program for transports. We destroyed two a moon ago, but there are hundreds more.

“It will be up to you officers to instill courage in your troops. It will be up to you to lead them in battle as Gryllos has done, as Countess Judy, as Lord Tuck and the High King have. You must be clever; you must be flexible and inventive. It’s quite clear that Gryllos’ opponents never expected him to abandon his post. They attacked it after all, assuming that our soldiers were still there. Just one more unpleasant surprise they experienced in that raid.”

The count held his hand up, one thumb pointed jauntily up. Everyone clapped and cheered.

That’s for me, Gryllos thought, suddenly more sober than he’d ever been in his life. It was the exact opposite of having had too much to drink.

And then with the clarity that such things bring, he suddenly knew the High King’s greatest fear, the fear that must sap Duke Tuck–any of the great military leaders of any time. Failure would burst their bubble. One of the things that sustained them and their soldiers was victory over seemingly insane odds. And now it was his legacy, too. How did they keep from becoming paralytic with fear?

There was a bit more, and then it was time for lunch. It was scary, Gryllos thought, many of the young officers, lieutenants and captains both, came up to him, just to talk with the hero.

He’d never felt like a hero, and the third time someone praised him effusively, he held up his hand. “Understand something. My heroism consisted of coming up behind a band of men and seeing them fire an unanswered volley into our allies, the Zarthani. It didn’t take much heroism to order my men to attack soldiers facing away from us, armed with unloaded weapons.

“Then we were among the Zarthani, stunned with our success. The Zarthani captain was no fool; he still had enemies to his north, and started pulling his men to that side to face an attack. The enemy commander obliged, his men fired a volley against men who were in cover, before attacking over open ground. The Zarthani, twice my numbers, fired, then we rode over the survivors. True, we faced them that time, but once again they had unloaded rifles.”

Some of the officers looked confused, but then Brigadier Markos came forward. “No, it’s not brave to attack an enemy who isn’t ready to fight back. Steady soldiers, though, even if just a few, might have been able to reload in the time you gave them. Battles are hard things, Captain. Seeing an enemy make a mistake isn’t an easy thing to do. Being in a position to take advantage of that mistake isn’t easy either. Doing it twice in a finger width...” He grinned broadly. “There’s a reason we’re heaping praise on you.

“Now, if you would, Captain, I’d like to see you and the following other officers after lunch at the statue of Tazi, north of the village.” He ran down a list of a dozen names, and then was off to another clump of officers.

Gryllos escaped to a table piled high with food. Leem was there, a smile on his face.

“I don’t know which is worse. Facing praise or facing the enemy,” the Ruthani opined.

“Something like that,” Gryllos admitted.

“My father, Gryllos, wasn’t like most men. He was hard, as most Ruthani fathers are. But there was always a difference with him. Life, he told us, was a contest. One of the men who was sent north brought a message from him to my mother and to the rest of us. ‘You must realize that you have to look at all things around you to see what it is that is truly there and what is truly not there. Nothing will kill you quicker than not seeing what’s there. Nothing will frustrate you faster than seeing things that aren’t truly there. Subterfuge is making people see things as they aren’t. Be it something that wasn’t there before, to something that was always there and you never saw before.

“’Do not kill those who come north from anger. Pity them, kill them as needs be, but let them surrender if you can do so safely.’”

“I am invited to a special demonstration in front of Lady Tazi after lunch,” Leem told him. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Only that I, too, am invited.”

“I am not my father; I don’t seek wives like other men seek knives or weapons. Still, if the High King has a new way to kill our enemies to the south, I may marry it!”

Gryllos laughed. Leem might not be the marrying sort, but he was extremely popular among Ruthani women. His dangerous appearance seemed to excite them instead of the other way around.

Gryllos ate well, and then walked with Leem to the statue. Leem was like the other Ruthani present: he walked up to the statue and kissed her on her bronze lips.

“Why do you do that?” Gryllos asked when the Ruthani returned to the captain’s side.

“It’s a prayer,” Leem said without embarrassment. “We all pray that we can be like her, so we can kill our enemies without fear. Many Ruthani died in the war, but none died braver. The Old Man of Mogdai and his followers and Tazi of Mogdai; they did their duty to the People.”

Brigadier Markos appeared, walking with two sergeants, who were each carrying a life-sized straw dummy strapped to a post. The sergeants went about thirty paces beyond the statue and placed the dummies in what were clearly pre-dug holes, while the general gathered the rest around him.

They two sergeants returned and stood behind the brigadier without speaking.

“The High King, as you all know,” Brigadier Markos told them, “is a man fond of weapons. This particular weapon is for close personal defense, as pistols are now. However, there is a difference. If you would, look at the dummies.”

All eyes went to the targets; only at the last heartbeat did Gryllos realize that whatever happened to them was secondary to how it happened, so his eyes returned quickly to the general.

It was quick. Had he not thought to look at once, he’d have missed it. Brigadier Markos reached into a pistol holster and pulled out what looked like a very large pistol with two barrels.

Two sullen “booms” echoed over the desert. Gryllos’ first thought was to laugh. No fireseed smoke! There was a little smoke, but not very much and the lightest breeze whisked it away.

There were gasps of surprise and at first Gryllos thought it was surprise at the shots. He looked at the dummies and gasped in surprise himself. “Blood” was leaking down the front of each dummy, leaking from a half dozen wounds in each, centered in their “chests.”

“This is what the High King calls a shotgun,” Brigadier Markos said into the silence that followed. He lofted something that was longer and heavier than a pistol, with twin barrels that looked larger than a pistol’s.

“The shells use a slightly different version of the explosive dots that send mortar shells on their way, and cause them to explode when they land.”

He looked around at the party he was speaking to. “The High King has many young, brave, aggressive and competent officers. He’s not worried about competition though, assuming you aren’t fond of the sort of headaches he has to deal with.”

There were uneasy laughs at that.

“He is worried, though, about how many of his officers are killed in battles. A third of his lieutenants die in battle. One in ten captains die in battle. Lord Tuck buried a half dozen of the God-King’s generals, as did the Grand Marshal. Perhaps a dozen fell to the High King himself.

“This weapon,” he brandished it for all to see, “is designed to take the place of pistols. Some of you already have double-barrel pistols, but with those you have two shots. As you can see from the dummies, while a shotgun shoots twice, it fires something like case shot, only smaller. Nine pellets, each the size of a woman’s little finger’s last joint. Smokeless fireseed, as well, which means it shoots relatively far. You can kill men out to a hundred paces, but if you do, you’re relying on luck. At thirty paces though...” He waved at the targets.

“That speaks for itself. We have received enough of these to equip the Ruthani scouts and our officers.”

One of the other officers, not Gryllos, was obviously excited. “Sir! If we equip all of our soldiers with these! Think what a shock a volley would be!”

The brigadier shook his head sadly and Gryllos already knew what was going to be said. He certainly hadn’t started out his charge against the God-King’s soldiers at pistol shot!

“If we could equip our soldiers with every weapon we have, which we can’t, even so, this one wouldn’t do. Do you really want to wait until your enemy is in pistol shot to open fire?” the general told them.

The captain flushed and looked down. No, that wouldn’t be good at all!

Brigadier Markos lifted the pistol-like thing, flipped a lever and spilled two glittering objects out onto the desert sand, slipped two more into the weapon, lifted it and fired again.

Even Gryllos gasped. Three heartbeats! Maybe two! You could fire it five or six times as fast as a pistol!

“Brigadier Markos,” Gryllos said loudly, “speaking on behalf of myself and Sergeant Leem, Ruthani scout, I’d like to volunteer us to test those weapons.”

There was a moment of silence, then rueful chuckles, and a few more offers of help “testing.”

“Relax, gentlemen! I said we have enough for all of you. For the time being we’re going to limit you to a hundred rounds each. I would suggest that if you are close enough to the enemy to fire off that many rounds, you’re too close.”

There was outright laughter at that.

Brigadier Markos shook his head. “No, seriously. I was talking not so long ago about this. I have never fired my personal weapons at enemies of the High King. After Three Hills, Captain Legios, then a messenger ensign, was adjusting to having been in battle, and I told him what I just told you. I saw Legios again a moon or so ago and he remembered what I’d said and told me that he still had yet to fire his own pistol.

“Your duty isn’t to shoot the enemy. Your duty is to lead your soldiers in battle. Yes, sometimes something terrible happens and you’re in the situation Countess Judy was, where the only weapon left to her was a shovel–after she’d fired all of her ammunition, and broken her rifle after having broken her bayonet.

“But unless something like that happens, your duty is to command the soldiers you lead and tell them where and how to kill our enemies. They hold dead men in no great respect, but they hold officers who lead them to victory in very high regard indeed.”

He smiled, although Gryllos thought it was a very wintry smile.

“You have a finger width break, then report to the statue of Old Man, south of the village.”

When Gryllos got there, two sergeants stood next to a mortar, set a short distance in front of the statues.

When everyone was assembled the older of the two sergeants stepped forward. “My name is Sergeant Hollar, most of the time I’m Captain Legios’ batman.” He lifted his hat, and all could see that a strip of hair was missing on his head, and a nasty scar in its place.

“Recently an Olmecha bullet parted my hair. I tried to pretend it didn’t happen, but let’s just say, you never want to pretend that unless you must. You see, as we all know, the priests of Galzar amputate shattered parts.”

There was a moment of silence and then a few embarrassed smiles. Amputate a head? Gross!

“Yes, obviously you understand then.

“Before you is a mortar. Once upon a time, mortars were a secret of the High King. We in the Heavy Weapons Company used them to good effect.

“In those days we fired two sorts of rounds. One that, mostly, exploded on contact with the ground, the second that started burning high in the air, and then drifted slowly down, providing light at night.

“Most units, even to company size in the High King’s army, have now been equipped with mortars,” the sergeant told them.

“Most of you probably use them for piss pots.”

This time the silence was hostile.

The sergeant grinned. “Don’t get me wrong; four times I’ve been in battles hot enough where the only safe way to fire our mortars was to piss on them first, but no, I’m talking about the fact that you don’t train with them.

“Captain Gryllos?”

The sergeant looked around and Gryllos lifted his hand.

“Captain Gryllos, why are you alive today?”

For Gryllos, it was a kind of epiphany. How many times had he said the words? “The mortars broke the back of the attacks, three times.” And what would have happened if those attacks hadn’t been broken?

“Mortars, sergeant. We had four at the Wagon Box fight. My junior lieutenant used to be a miner, and further trained with you and your Captain Legios. Now, so long as he doesn’t have to go underground to do it, he just loves to blow things up. He loves our mortars.”

“And how many times did those mortars save the day? You only had four of them, right?”

“Yes, sergeant, just four mortars. Three times. They can be fired very fast and the explosions are deadly against small units concentrated to attack.” Now he was repeating what he’d heard the first time he’d been briefed. Now... now he was appalled at how little he’d learned from his own personal lesson!

“And you faced how many Olmechan soldiers?”

“Three hundred to start with, we thought. Maybe three hundred and fifty.”

“And you had half that?”

“A little more, sergeant. But we were pinned down, while they could range around our perimeter.” He realized it then, something that hadn’t impinged on him at the time.

“They didn’t follow their usual tactics. There were no probes. They came on in big attacks.”

“But you won anyway?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“And the mortars made the difference?”

“Yes, they don’t like them. I know your Heavy Weapons Company scares them into flight, but you weren’t there. Still, they seemed wary, more wary than usual. Between accurate fire from our riflemen and the mortars, they didn’t press their attacks like they should have.”

“There you have it, gentleman,” the sergeant told the assembled officers.

“For some time, most of you have had integral mortars attached to your units and have either never fired them, or have fired them once or twice, not concerned about accuracy. That, sirs, is simply unacceptable.”

“Sergeant, who are you to tell us what’s acceptable?” a voice from the middle of the group spoke.

The sergeant wasn’t fazed. “Sir, if you have the courage of your convictions, you’ll come and face me and demand my name, rank and unit.”

There was no movement forward. “Now see, sir, that was smart, because after you got done asking for mine, I’d have asked for yours. Brigadier Markos wants to weed the fools out.”

It was, Gryllos thought, lese-majesty; insubordination of the worst sort. Why was the sergeant goading the officer? Of course, that begged the question: why didn’t the officer step forward?

“Yes, I’m a sergeant. If you think sergeants have no business correcting you, you’ve had different sergeants than my officers have had. I have some of the best officers in all of Hostigos, because they’re willing to learn from those of us who can teach them.

“Mortars, sir, can be the difference between defeat and victory. If you don’t want victory, sir, I suggest you resign at once, because I’m positive the High King doesn’t want you.

“Unlike most of you, I’ve spoken to the High King, and he spent quite some time explaining mortars to me. Most of that, sir, was preaching to the choir, but who wants to tell the High King that he’s gassin’ on, eh?”

There were more stirs. “Yeah, so yes, I know what the High King thinks is acceptable. And this isn’t it. Captain Gryllos knows what is acceptable. Four mortars, one hundred and fifty rounds each. He said it, gentlemen! They made the difference three times!

“Where will you be, if the first time they could make a difference and they’re still back in camp? Or still loaded on the packhorses? Eh?”

“I’ll have you stripped and flogged,” the voice said. It was clearer who was speaking, because officers had steadily drawn away from the speaker.

The sergeant shook his head sadly. “Sir, you don’t have the combat sense of a rabbit. Sir, would you like to turn around and repeat that?”

Gryllos looked. It was the oddest thing. It was like everyone in the middle of the group of officers suddenly jumped a couple of feet further away from the man. One man was left in the center, with Count Errock directly behind him. The man realized that the eyes of his fellows weren’t on him, but on someone behind him.

He turned and his eyes widened.

The count’s words were the man’s doom. “Is your name Helmoth?”

The lieutenant paled, but stood his ground. “No, sir. Highness, this man is insubordinate!”

“That man is Sergeant Hollar, decorated personally three times by the High King for bravery. A man, Lieutenant, who joined the army about the time you were still pissing your pants regularly.”

The lieutenant had the good sense to shut up at that point. It didn’t matter.

“Lieutenant, what should lieutenants with your experience do when sergeants of Sergeant Hollar’s experience offer you advice?”

The man made no move or sign. The count grinned. “Well, you’ve got that right! You listen and keep your mouth shut!”

No one laughed, knowing they were looking at the ruin of a man’s career.

“Sergeant Hollar, the High King told me that he has made two bets with you. One he lost, one he doesn’t expect to. What, Sergeant, was the circumstances of the first bet?”

The sergeant looked around. At least, Gryllos thought, he was uncomfortable at last. “The High King wanted to have a mortar aiming contest with Duke Tuck. They wanted Captain Legios to be the judge. I didn’t understand the stakes; I thought they were talking horses. I had a pretty good horse I’d stolen from the God-King, so I offered to put up mine, too, if I could have a shot at the match. He was better than Duke Tuck’s horse!”

“And who won the match, Sergeant?”

“Duke Tuck, sir. The man’s a wizard with mortars! I thought I was good, but sir, he can drop a round in your hip pocket out at a mile! The High King came in dead last.”

He paused and laughed heartily. “The bet was actually about who was going to groom the other’s horse.”

“And your second bet with the High King?”

“It’s personal, sir.”

“No, Sergeant, that will not do. Please explain your second bet.”

The sergeant stood mute, not speaking. That too, was a surprise.

Count Errock grinned. “It was a simple bet. The High King wanted to make sure Sergeant Hollar kept Captain Legios safe during the war. The High King set the stakes. If Sergeant Hollar died keeping his captain safe, he’d make the sergeant’s wife a baroness. And when his captain was still alive and the war was over, he granted Sergeant Hollar a barony right then, since Captain Legios was still alive.”

The count’s eyes flashed. “I outrank all here in the army; I outrank all of you in the Kingdom of Hostigos. Some of you outrank Sergeant Hollar in the army, but none of you outrank Baron Hollar in the Kingdom of Hostigos.

“I told the sergeant what you were doing, or rather what you weren’t doing. He was outraged and told me, in no uncertain terms, how stupid I was to permit this. I told him that I agreed and that, language or not, he should tell you. Captain Legios agreed, and sent him here to be with us today.”

The count reached up and slapped the lieutenant’s head, like a father slapping an insubordinate son. “Listen up!”

Sergeant Hollar grimaced. “Returning to the subject at hand, gentleman.

“We have three kinds of mortars now for field use. They all work the same, but they use different sizes of ammunition. You will want to take particular care with that, because you don’t want to be in the middle of a fight and have the wrong size shell.

“One size is the palm mortar–it fires a shell about as wide as your palm is wide. There is the hand mortar, which fires a shell as wide as your hand is long, roughly twice the size of a palm mortar. Then there is the heavy mortar, it is roughly half again the size of a hand mortar.

“You need to check the markings on the crates, with the markings on the side of your mortars. If they don’t agree, let someone know at once!”

“In addition, we’ve introduced a new type of shell. In the past, shells detonated on impact, or when they tipped over and started to fall, those being the flares. Now we have a shell that explodes a dozen feet off the ground. This increases the effects of the shells.”

“How is that?” someone asked.

“All of the bits and pieces rain down on the enemy,” the sergeant told them, “instead of half the pieces going into the ground.”

“What about the pieces that go up?” the speaker asked.

Sergeant Hollar lifted a mortar shell and tossed it underhanded to the speaker. Everyone around the man jumped for cover, but the officer managed to catch the shell.

“Lieutenant, you now hold in your hands a great truth: what goes up, comes down. You may have noticed a slight–tingle–to your palms when you caught it?”

The lieutenant looked down at the shell, then up at the sergeant.

“Well?” Count Errock asked.

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said glumly.

“Listen to me,” the count told them. “The only way to win is to use the weapons you have in the best manner you can. Half measures won’t work. You can’t rely on how Duke Tuck defeated them, you can’t rely on how Countess Judy defeated them, and you can’t rely on how Captain Legios defeated our enemies. When it comes down to it, it’ll be you and them. You and the soldiers you command against the soldiers your opponent commands.”

He gestured to Gryllos. “Captain, how might you have made use of shells that explode overhead?”

Gryllos felt his throat tighten. After a long, long time of thought, he looked at Count Errock. “Sir, I don’t know if they would have helped. It might have frightened them and caused them to pull back quicker. That might have left more for the Ruthani to fight, later.”

“Do you know what I told Brigadier Markos when I saw this weapon demonstrated for the first time?” the count asked.

Gryllos shook his head.

“I told him that I would fear explosions on the ground near me, but puffs of smoke in the air wouldn’t bother me at all. I would only fear the puffs once I’d taken shrapnel from one. But all men fear explosions on the ground.”

Gryllos nodded in agreement.

“What Sergeant Hollar forgot to mention is that a rock lofted into the air is less likely to injure than one thrown with intent. All you have to do if a shell explodes more than a short distance over your head, is duck and like as not, you’ll not be hurt, particularly if you’re wearing any kind of helmet.”

III

Judy at rigidly erect on her horse, staring at the Olmechan soldiers atop the ridge a mile to the west. Her first thought was despair and her second was native caution.

She turned to Captain Legios. “Captain, I have no intention of going up that hill after them, no matter how long they stay up there. Given that, where would you like to place your mortars?”

Legios looked around and sighed. “Lady Judy, there are some dead areas east of us, out of direct fire. Not a great deal of area, but enough.” He grinned suddenly. “Lord Tuck has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the personal shovel. My mortarmen purely hate to carry anything extra. We have some, I’m sure, but not as many as I’d like.”

He pointed a half mile further to the east. “There, I think. The ground is at least a little broken and we’ll be out of aimed rifle fire.”

“Set up there, then. I’ll see if I can get some shovels for you from my troopers. In the future, Captain, don’t point. They can see it.”

She cast another eye over the battlefield. To the north there was a tangle of washes, all aligned east-west. They would be no shelter for her soldiers, but they would obstruct any flanking attempt from that direction. To her south, her left, the desert stretched on for miles.

She turned to Emilios, her batman. “Emilios, if you would, fetch the Duke’s Helm.”

It would be a cheap trick, and would collapse in an instant if any of the enemy soldiers got a close look at who commanded against them. What would happen then would be anyone’s guess; Judy privately thought there was a good chance they’d attack instantly, in anger at having been fooled.

She turned to Vosper, waiting patiently at her side. “Captain, order our men to withdraw in order, carefully and slowly.” She nodded to a spot about a hundred yards to the west of where the mortarmen were already unloading their equipment, about a half mile further away from the ridge.

“Aye, my lady!”

He was old enough, nearly, to be her grandfather. He had a leather-lunged voice that was the envy of not only his peers, but most of the sergeants in the army of Hostigos, of whom he used to be one.

The mortarmen were moving back in order almost a half mile to the reverse slope of a small rise in the desert. It wasn’t a military obstacle, it wasn’t much cover for the mortars, but standing on top of the rise would give her a marginally better position to see what was going on.

Cavalry Captain Gonius waited for her. “My Lady, the cavalry disposition?”

For the first time she felt a slight twinge of hope. “Do you see the two small hills to our left rear?” she asked, using her eyes and not her hands to point.

“Aye, Lady Judy.”

“I want you to take your soldiers that way, staying a little to the north. Make some dust. When you get even with the hill, kill the dust. Dismount and go south, around the hills on the east. No dust, do you understand?”

“I understand, my Lady. Then what are my orders?”

“These are soldiers of the King of the Olmecha, that is, they used to be the God-King’s soldiers. In spite of everything, their officers still think they are better soldiers than we are, cleverer soldiers and more canny at traps and ambushes.”

Gonius snorted in derision. Yes, they were deluded about that.

“Continue south around that hill. That’ll put you about six miles south of us. Come around the hill, walking your horses; that’ll be after dark. Do you see the hill to our left front?”

Gonius nodded. “I do, my Lady.”

“Take some of the Ruthani scouts with you and have them kill the Olmechan scouts. Stay out of sight, but even with that hill, on the west side.

“This afternoon, probably late in the afternoon, they will figure out that I’m not about to attack them on that hill.”

Gonius chuckled; only a fool would try that hill and the fool would need a lot more men than Lady Judy had.

“They’ll probe our lines; they like to do that. In this case, I think they will try to be clever and will attack the center instead of one of the flanks.”

Gonius smiled again. Clever? Suicide was another name for that.

“Tomorrow, at first light, they will probe on the right, across the broken ground. The soldiers of their new king need roads no more than the God-King’s soldiers did.”

Gonius nodded, more intent. “Take your men then, and attack their rear, once the fighting starts tomorrow. The center of the rear, preferably, but however far you’ve been able to penetrate without being discovered.”

“It shall be as you command, my lady!”

“Gonius, we haven’t talked about this. Not you and I, not my husband and you, not even Tuck and you. You command, Captain, the first true cavalry the High King has sent to the west. King Xyl believes we are mounted infantry.”

“Yes, my lady?” Judy could see the curiosity in his eyes.

“Captain Gonius, rumor has it that the High King’s cavalry is the best in the world. That you can ride further, faster and without being seen than any other. Ride far, ride fast, and hit them without being seen. And remember, they’ve never, ever faced a real cavalry charge.”

The cavalry captain grinned then. “Lady Judy! You are sending us to heaven!”

“Don’t be silly! I’m merely sending you to a place where you can strike our enemy to maximum effect! I’d like to see you back here, all of you, after the battle.”

Captain Gonius sobered instantly. “I misspoke, Countess, I’m sorry for my liberty. It is as you say; tomorrow night my men will all live, and the enemies of Hostigos will be thrown down. If, perchance, we should enjoy ourselves in whatever way, why that is mere happenstance.”

Judy nodded. “I have some orders for you,” she said, and then spent a finger width writing furiously on one piece of paper, and then she started on a second. She handed them both to the cavalry officer.

He saluted and she returned it. A heartbeat later he was riding away.

Both Vosper and Emilios had returned. First Judy took the helm and placed it on her head. This made her, she knew, an instant target. Maybe one in a thousand of their enemies would realize she was too tall to be Lord Tuck and would shoot at someone else. The rest would shoot at her. Every shot fired at her, was a shot not fired at her army, and something to be welcomed, no matter how dangerous it was for her.

“Vosper?”

“The withdrawal has begun. We are taking it slow, so it won’t be readily apparent at first that we are withdrawing.”

“Very good.”

“And Captain Gonius?”

“He’s going to hit them from behind, come dawn.”

“Ah!”

Judy looked at what was going on around her, turned and headed her horse back two hundred yards.

“Vosper, did you give orders for them to dig in when we reach the rise?”

“Yes, my lady.” He glanced at her. “They have a new name for their shovels.”

Judy had been in the field for two days; she’d already heard it, but knew Vosper was making a statement for the record. “They do, Captain?”

“Aye. They call it ‘Lord Tuck’s Best Part.’”

Judy pretended to be appalled. “I hope no one uses that in front of Tanda Havra, or it will be a soldier missing his best parts.”

“They believe that now that she is a mother, they no longer have to worry.”

Judy clapped Vosper on his back. “The question they have to ask themselves, has Tanda Havra changed or not?”

Vosper laughed at that. “I’ll warn them, my lady!”

They pulled back another two hundred yards, just a few feet from the front of their new lines.

Judy stopped only for a moment, and then rode the last few feet to the highest spot on the tiny rise. “Twenty thousand to our ten thousand,” Judy told Vosper.

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Alert the men. About two palm widths before dark, about ten thousand of them will try our right flank. I want them engaged as soon as they start down that hill.”

“At a mile?”

“Yes, at a mile. Mortars and sharpshooters. Spread the word–anyone who thinks they are a sharpshooter can fire.”

Vosper grinned. “That’s every single man in your division, Lady Judy.”

“Of course. About half of them are as good as they think; half the rest are almost that good. A lot of those soldiers will die on that slope.”

Legios had returned and was sitting his horse quietly, a few feet away.

“About then,” Judy said, waving at Legios, “they will realize we have no cannon, and they won’t have to face case shot. This will spur them on.” She looked at her closest advisors. “I swear I’ll never again march out without my cannon.”

Vosper coughed. “Lady Judy, they were raiding your lands. You had to respond. To have failed to quickly respond–they’d have taken that as permission to come twice as strong next time.”

Legios spoke up. “Lady Judy, as you know the High King thinks well of me. We have a surprise that awaits only the right moment to show King Xyl’s soldiers. The High King said I could reveal it as I wish. Now, I think, would be a good time.”

“What kind of weapon, Legios?” Judy asked. Not many people had earned the favor of the High King like Legios had. Fewer still had earned the favor of Harmakros, the High King’s Marshal of the Army. Legios had done that, too.

“Lady Judy, I don’t understand how it works, but the shells explode, about half the time, twenty feet above the ground. They are about twice as deadly as the version that explode when they hit the ground.”

Judy smiled slightly. “The Lord Tuck told me an important lesson to learn about fighting an enemy was to do things they don’t understand. They feel they are being outfought and react accordingly. This should work like that.”

Judy waved and she, Vosper and Legios walked a short distance away from everyone else. “Last night at dusk, Lieutenant Storax and the scouts went south,” she told them bluntly. “At dawn Storax messaged that the way was clear. He used the code word he was given to make sure that it was indeed him.”

“He’s a traitor,” Vosper whispered, aghast.

“If we should see him again,” Judy said dryly, “I imagine we’ll have some pointed questions to ask him and his scouts. But I don’t think we’ll see him again, except in our rifle sights.”

Lieutenant Storax had been one of the soldiers who’d come west with General Denethon of Zarthan after the debacle at Three Hills. Denethon had led eighty thousand men away from that battle, he had about thirty thousand left when he finally surrendered to Tuck at Grayx, a town on the Rio Grande, or what they called here, the Big River.

Storax had been a corporal under the God-King, and they had been desperate for scouts and officers both. He’d taken the High King’s oath, had vowed loyalty to Judy as well, and had been given a fair chunk of land near Tecpan.

Vosper spoke up. “I’ll prepare a report and I’ll be sure to put that in it. Colonel Andromoth at Xipototec will know what to do. As soon as I have the report ready, I’ll send it north.”

Judy nodded. “You’re right. Prepare the report, but send it east, not north.” She waved at the ridge. “If they’re up there, they’ll have quite a few scouts behind us. Even sending east won’t be the safest thing.”

Vosper nodded, and dismounted, pulling out some paper of his own.

IV

Captain Legios looked at the hill and the new King Xyl’s soldiers on it and smiled slightly. Contempt, that’s what he held them in. Cautious contempt, of course, because they were dangerous. There were snakes in the desert that were dangerous, plus spiders and other insects and things that stung with dangerous venom.

Next to him, his messenger ensign shifted nervously and Legios turned to the young man. He’d heard Lord Tuck despair about how many young people were in combat units. Of course, Lord Tuck was the one who’d let Lady Judy fight, and Tazi and Zokala, all younger than the High King would have permitted.

Still, this was the young man’s third day of duty with the Heavy Weapons Company in the field. Looking up at that ridge line with all those soldiers had to be scary.

Legios turned to his ensign. “Right now you are afraid,” he told the young man.

“Of course not, sir,” came the reply. Of course, the young man’s voice nearly broke.

“Once upon a time, I too graduated from the same school in Xiphlon that you did. I knew how to ride a horse and they gave those of who did a three day pass, then we had to report back for our assignments.

“I went home a little after High Sun to my family; they live in Xiphlon. That evening we were having a family dinner when a messenger appeared, recalling me to duty a palm width before sunrise the next day, to see Captain-General Hestophes, I was told.

“I arrived a palm width early and found that I was really to see Brigadier Markos, who commanded the Sixth Mounted Rifles. Three finger widths later the brigadier looked at the dozen of us who were there early. I heard him speak. ‘These men will do,’ he said to one of his captains.

“Then he spoke to us. ‘The Sixth Mounted are the eyes and ears of Captain-General Hestophes and the First Mounted Rifles.’ He told us that the First Mounted Rifles was the finest division in all of the armies of the High King, in all of Hostigos, but that the Sixth was just as good.

“He told us that he was to march south to skirmish against the forces of the God-King of Mexicotál, who were already advancing on the High King’s lands, aiming at Xiphlon. He asked who among of us was brave enough to ride with the Sixth. None of us, Ensign, failed to step forward.

“A finger width, Ensign, is all that we had then. We were taken out, put on horses and we started south. We rode six hundred miles in eighteen days, do you understand that, Ensign?”

The ensign paled. “Yes, sir.”

“On that hill are twenty thousand of King Xyl’s soldiers. The first time I saw the God-King’s army we numbered a tenth of what the countess has with her today. And the God-King’s van numbered a quarter of a million.”

The ensign swallowed, his throat working.

“For the better part of two moons we skirmished against them. Do you know how many of them we faced in our first real battle?”

The young man shook his head, his eyes staring in shock.

“More than twenty thousand of them. At dawn a thousand rose, fired rifles at us and tried to cross a river; the Sixth threw them back. Then full divisions on either flank rose and attacked us, ten thousand men in each division. Twenty to one, Ensign.

“We retreated in order, but Brigadier Markos sent me to report to Captain-General Hestophes, forty miles off. I used a half dozen horses and reached the Captain-General shortly after lunch. I reported, got orders for Brigadier Markos and returned. Then we marched to our position that we held in the Three Hills battle. There was still light in the sky that same day when we moved into position on that hill.

“The next morning the God-King’s soldiers tried the Sixth Mounted, but that time they made a serious blunder and sent only five thousand men. Five to one against us–we slaughtered them and sent the few survivors running for their lives.

“I was promoted and assigned to the Heavy Weapons Company. After Three Hills we started to chase General Denethon. You’ve heard of General Denethon?”

The young ensign bobbed his head.

“Did you know that the only unit of the First Mounted Rifles that caught General Denethon was the Heavy Weapons Company? And that we did it twice?”

“No, Captain, I didn’t know that!”

“Both times they didn’t put up much of a fight. Then, finally, we came up to them a third time at Grayx. That’s where they surrendered. Of course, we had a little help from Lord Tuck’s army, which prevented them from fleeing south and west. The High King’s army prevented them from fleeing north and Hestophes was to Denethon’s east.”

“I am honored, sir, to be part of such a fine unit!”

Legios smiled slightly. “And we are a fine unit, we are! Today, tomorrow and all the rest of our days we will do our duty and do it well!”

Legios waved at the hill. “If we officers do our duty to the High King, to Hostigos and above all to the countess, we will have all of those tomorrows! Our soldiers are very, very skilled at killing them!”

The young ensign nodded, looking more confident.

“Before you, Ensign, is a battlefield. Describe it to me.”

The young ensign spent a few heartbeats composing his answer, and then did a fair job describing the geography, and the number of soldiers on the ridge facing them.

“Good! Very good, Ensign! But I tell you that you’ve missed the single most important factor of all.”

“I have no idea what that might be, Captain,” the ensign said forlornly.

Legios laughed nastily. “They are up there on their hill, Ensign. They’ve been up there since first light, as we approached, until they finally showed themselves. Now we have pulled a ways back. And still, there they sit. Tell me, Ensign, if you were confident of defeating your enemy, would you hesitate?”

The young man’s brows furrowed, before he looked at Legios. “No, sir.”

“That’s right. In fact, if you were confident of anything like victory, you’d have attacked as soon as you could, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, sir!” the ensign said stoutly.

“But, they haven’t. Would you care to hazard a guess why not?”

The ensign thought and thought, before finally saying, sounding rather glum, “I don’t know, sir.”

“Fear, Ensign. They are afraid their attack will fail. That tells us a great deal about the sort of soldiers we face and the quality of the officers who command them.”

The ensign looked at the soldiers on the hill, and realized that they had, indeed, been there since dawn. Captain Legios was right–why hadn’t they come down?

“Surely they will attack?” the ensign told his commander.

“Of course they will attack. But every heartbeat they hold back tells Lady Judy what sort of soldiers we face. Every heartbeat they hold back allows our troopers to dig their firing positions deeper. This isn’t to the advantage of King Xyl, do you understand?”

“I think I see, Captain.” The ensign was looking much less pale and his eyes were darting over the terrain with much more interest.

“One more thing for you to think upon, Ensign,” Legios told the young officer. “They can stay on that hill, they can maneuver against us to attack us on the right, the left, or the center. The countess has already told me where and when she expects them to attack later today. I think she is right. Would you care to give me your opinion, Ensign?”

“The countess believes they will attack?” the ensign asked, back to being afraid.

“Yes, I said that. So, yes, you can eliminate the possibility of them staying on the ridge or maneuvering against us. That leaves the right, the left or the center.”

The young man looked over the ground for some time, before he turned to Legios. “Captain, I don’t know. All I could do is guess.”

Legios laughed. “Usually a guess is all you’ve got. Let’s take it one part at a time. What would they face if they attacked to the north, our right?”

“The ground is broken there. Their attack would be slowed.”

“And do you know what happens to soldiers who attack us, and who slow in the course of the battle?”

“We beat them, sir.”

“We kill them, Ensign.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, how about our left? It’s nice and flat, there are no obstructions there.”

“Sir, that’s what I don’t know. I thought they would not come against the right, but I don’t know about the other choices. The center is supposed to be very tough to attack.”

“Everybody shoots at you,” Legios agreed. “Captain-General Oaxhan of the God-King launched his main attack at Three Hills against the Grand Marshal’s forces in the center. Close on a thousand cannon firing case shot ended the attack and the hundred thousand men who made it, in thirty heartbeats. We have no case shot.”

“Yes, sir. So, I guess, our left.”

“What would happen if they attacked the left? Where would we be, in relation to them and Tecpan if they pushed us back?”

“We would be between them and the city.”

“Exactly. Thus, if they attack our left, and we refuse the battle, we can turn our line so that we’re between them and the city and then we can retreat back to our base. Long before we’d get there, though, we’ll get another twenty thousand soldiers to reinforce us. They would be defeated, even if they won the first battle.”

“Yes, sir. The center, then?”

“The center, with the heavier weight of the attack coming to our right. They have to attack today. Two palm widths before sunset is our best guess. So that if they lose, we won’t be able to follow up our victory in the dark.”

“But sir, what if they win?”

Legios chuckled. “What does it tell you about an enemy when they plan for dealing with their defeat, before the battle starts?”

The ensign looked at the men on the hill. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but they looked much smaller and not nearly as fierce as they had a while ago.

Captain Legios reached out and touched the young man’s shoulder. “You’re understanding how bad things are for King Xyl’s soldiers. You’ve left out the two most decisive elements.”

“Sir?” the ensign asked.

“Have you heard the story of Lady Judy and Tarr-Dombra South?”

“No, Captain. I’ve heard that the countess was a common soldier in the war.”

“You will want to make note of who told you those lies,” Legios told the ensign roughly. “Such men are never your friends.”

“Tarr-Dombra is a rocky outcrop, roughly due west from here. Captain-General Thanos of the God-King attacked it with a thousand soldiers. There were ninety defenders.”

The ensign blinked.

Legios grinned. “Exactly. Fifteen of ninety survived the battle. A thousand of the God-King’s finest attacked them. None of them survived.”

“A year ago, a court fop from Harphax arrived, intent on taking over the county from ‘an incompetent woman child.’ Ensign, that man challenged Lady Judy to a duel.”

The ensign drew himself up. “That was a despicable thing!”

Legios laughed. “Yes, but not for the reason you think. As the challenged party, Lady Judy chose her weapon: a shovel.”

“A shovel?” the young ensign could hardly believe his ears.

“Aye. But, unlike you, the man had heard the stories. He turned and ran.”

“The stories, Captain?”

“Ensign, in that battle, Lady Judy’s rifle was broken, as was her bayonet. The only weapon that came to her hand was a shovel. No one truly knows how many men she killed with that shovel, but it was more than thirty. Most say sixty; some say a hundred. All of those are men or women who were there and who survived.”

Legios waved at the field in front of them. “Now, some serious military lessons, Ensign. I served with Brigadier Markos at Three Hills, then with Captain-General Hestophes, in the pursuit of General Denethon after the battle.

“Ensign, do you know what the Grand Marshal told me, after the war?”

The ensign shook his head. Hestophes and Captain Legios had talked? It seemed impossible! Incredible!

“If he had an army and a field of battle, the man he feared to face the most would be the High King. If he was marching and ran into an ambush, the man he feared the most was Lord Tuck.

“But, beyond that, the man he never wanted to face again on any field of battle was Denethon of Zarthan. We chased him for a thousand miles, Ensign! He outthought Hestophes at every pass!”

Legios remembered those days. “We’d turn south to cut him off, but he’d have turned northwest and opened the gap between our armies. Twice the Heavy Weapons Company caught him, but as good as we are, all we could do was send his men in another direction.

“It took, Ensign, Hestophes, the High King himself and the army of Lord Tuck to help us run Denethon down. Always, Ensign, Denethon did the unexpected. Even at the last battle, Count Gamelin ambushed Denethon’s army, and Denethon’s men broke and scattered, three out of four surviving what should have been their total destruction.”

Legios waved at the hill. “We’ve talked about the attack. Do you understand how Denethon ran us ragged? Three blessed armies of men, including the High King?”

“No, sir.”

“Because he was forever doing something unexpected. Not only did Denethon think about what was going to happen today, but he thought about tomorrow and the day after. Tell me, Ensign, if our army stands this afternoon, what’s next?”

“They will be to our north, cutting off our retreat.”

Captain Legios smiled thinly. “Now you’re getting there, Ensign! But, if they’re cutting off our retreat, where will we be?”

“Here, cut off.”

“We’ll be cutting off their retreat, Ensign! Moreover, what do you think was said by Lord Gamelin when someone told him that his wife had been ambushed?”

“He’s coming.”

“Yes, he’s coming. The message went out this morning. We got a bare receipt from Tecpan, but then, what need is there for words, eh? Gamelin is just a few days east of the city, and is undoubtedly now coming with his army using forced marches, another ten thousand men, and he’ll meet up with the reserves from Tecpan, another ten thousand. They’ll be here shortly after first light, day after tomorrow. What of Lord Tuck and Grand Marshal Hestophes?”

“They will come as well,” the ensign breathed, stunned.

“Exactly. King Xyl’s army thinks they’ve cut off our retreat. But we’re three easy days from our base and they are more than a third of a moon from theirs. Gamelin will come. Hestophes will come. Tuck will come. And then the soldiers of King Xyl will all die.”

Legios waved at the hill with the proud pennants of the King Xyl’s soldiers fluttering in the breeze at the top. “By High Sun, day after tomorrow, every last mother’s son on that hill will be dead. And they will be very, very sorry that they ever attacked a woman who used a shovel to defend her soldiers.”

V

Puma woke up and stretched, then sat full up. She froze, her eyes going to the man sitting cross-legged on the floor not far from her bed.

“I did not hear you enter, brother,” she said calmly.

“You snore. I’m not your brother, in spite of how many brothers you have. I am cousin to Manistewa, called Shuria, that’s Long Legs. I am of the Northern Ruthani.”

“You are a long way from home,” Puma said, trying to stay polite.

He spat on her floor. She already knew that the Hostigi didn’t like spitting at all.

“My brothers and sisters, Puma, are insane. They war against Zarthan, believing that Zarthan’s war distracts them from rubbing them out. For a time, that will be true. Worse, they war against the High King as well, absurdly pleased they’ve won one skirmish in ten against toothless old men and bare-cheeked boys they have had to fight.” He looked at her bleakly. “The Zarthani will crush us, do you understand? The High King? When he comes the Northern Ruthani will cease to exist! They will be ground to dust and then thrown to the winds!”

Puma considered what she’d seen. She shrugged. “And why are you here?”

“My cousin is uncle to Tanda Havra. They hate each other.”

Puma nodded. Everyone knew that. At first she’d thought badly of Tanda Havra, because she’d first believed that Tanda Havra was seeking her father’s protection against her uncle. Except all said Tanda Havra needed no protection except the knife on her belt. Having met Tanda Havra, Puma was quite willing to nod “yes” to that!

“That said, they work together, because when it’s not about each other, they have similar goals. He sent me to her, to scout. Now, Tanda Havra has told me to teach you what it means to scout for Hostigos.”

It was on Puma’s tongue to tell him she knew what was entailed. But then, a lot of men had said the same thing–men later sent home in shame, and who would, for all their lives, have to live with that shame. A great many of those men had slit their own bellies; more had found a group of the God-King’s soldiers and hurled themselves into their midst, killing all they could reach with their knives.

Her half-blood brother Leem had told her that story, and then had laughed. “Have you ever seen a bullet fly from a fireseed rifle?” She nodded. “Who has the longer reach? A man with a knife or a man with a rifle? Who will be alive, after?”

That was clear enough.

Puma bowed. “I know how to run. I know how to hide. I would learn how to scout.”

He grunted. “Good! Come!”

A finger width later they were out of the city, running easily down the main road. No one seemed to pay them any mind, although Puma had to wonder how often they saw two Ruthani running without any weapons other than their knives.

They kept running, without slowing. His was a long loping stride, but she could match him step for step, feeling no particular fatigue. She was Puma! Lion’s daughter! She could run until the moon was full, three moon quarters away!

The sun vanished and still they ran along the road, now untenanted, a silver stripe in the darkness. He slowed to a trot, slowed to a walk and waved. “Water.”

There was a small stream and she slaked her thirst carefully, knowing that a full belly of water wouldn’t speed her this night!

He darted away, at an angle from the road. Puma followed quickly, catching up, and again matching him stride for stride. For a while they ran through canyons filled with tumbles of rock, then past midnight, they started up the flank of a mountain.

Shortly before the sun was more than a tinge on the horizon, he stopped again. This time there was no water. Instead, he stared intently into the distance. A light began to flash on a distant mountain.

He watched the light flash. Early, he had grunted, as if surprised, but after that, he watched stolidly. Finally he turned to her.

“This is no longer a game. I was told to teach you how to scout; teaching is done. Scouting is our duty now.” He waved to the south.

“About a half mile south of us is a Mexicotál signal station. There are three sergeants, a corporal and a dozen privates. They have rifles. We need rifles, you and I. Rifles and ammunition. Your father stole a few rifles in his day, did he not?”

“Yes.”

“Then come. Please, for now be very quiet. We have spent a great deal of time training the soldiers of Xipototec how to watch at night. One or two actually know what they are doing. If we’re challenged, don’t speak, just let me. Otherwise, when I motion, slit a man’s fireseed pouch from his belt, then grab a rifle from one of the stands. Lift the butt of the rifle a few inches from the ground, no more, and then twist to the right and down. Do that and it comes free. Do anything else, and they all collapse into a tangle.”

“And this is not a trick?”

“This is not a trick, I swear! I will explain when we are running away from that camp! At least I will be, after they get done shooting at us!”

Puma shrugged. If she’d thought Shuria had run fast before, she readjusted her beliefs. He flew over the ground, so fast that he seemed to float. It was all she could do to keep up; she succeeded because it wasn’t that far.

He ghosted into the camp behind a sentry, standing stretching and yawning. For Puma, it was easier. The sentry she went past was leaning on his rifle, all but asleep. She poised her knife, saw Shuria’s nod, then she slit the pouch away from its owner and scooped it up. Two steps and she was twisting and pulling on a rifle. Two heartbeats, perhaps three, for all of that!

They were a half dozen steps from the camp when the first rifle hit the ground, and one of the sleepy sentries looked around, confused at the sound. They dipped down out of direct sight, just before the first shots were fired.

They hugged the mountainside, dropping swiftly in altitude. There were more shots, but the men shooting were nearly a mile away by then, and the two Ruthani were running very fast.

Shuria reached the flat ground east of the mountains, and his stride smoothed, still very fast. Puma came up easily next to him.

“What?” she said with economy.

“King Xyl ambushed Countess Judy. Twenty thousand to her ten thousand. Her scouts betrayed her.”

“And us?”

He glanced ahead for a second, and then turned his head. “She’ll need scouts!” His eyes went back to the trail. “You won’t mind running through an army of the God-King’s soldiers, I expect?”

“Do we get to kill any of them?”

He shook his head. “Better if they never know we were there.”

“My father showed me how to load a rifle when I was a little girl,” she said as they continued running.

“So I’ve heard!” he told her. He looked forward. “We have another range to cross. I tell you true, to catch up with the countess, we will have to take some risks.”

“And these fangs bouncing on my chest? What are they?”

“Noisy!” he told her.

She grimaced. True enough. At High Sun they stopped to drink at a spring, and the necklace went into the special bag on her belt that would make no sound. She checked the rifle then, and saw it wasn’t loaded. She swiftly loaded it, seeing that Shuria was doing the same thing.

Shuria grinned. “I’m thinking, girl, that there’s not much left to teach you. Beyond the importance of our duty.”

“And my father died doing what?” she said, spitting on the ground.

He laughed. “He died not being careful! We will be careful!”

They ran again.


	10. Moving Fast

I

Noia thought she’d traveled rapidly from North Port to Echanistra, and then she had thought she’d traveled fast from Echanistra to Baytown, even if it took a moon. She thought she’d traveled rapidly from Baytown to that nameless waterhole, even if it had taken a moon and a half. Then she thought she’d traveled fast from the waterhole to Outpost in the following few days.

There was no doubt about it; the two hundred men of their escort moved very fast to Kingstown, making the trip in three days short of a moon. If that had been fast, the trip from there to Hostigos had been a blur. Noia had sat at the window of the steam wagon and stared at the landscape as it flowed past as fast as a horse could gallop. For palm width after palm width, with only a few breaks for the steam puller to pick up more coal and water.

They skirted north of Xiphlon at night; as a result she never got so much as a glimpse of the greatest city in the world. Finally there was a two-day gallop on horseback once again, changing horses often. Then they were in the town of Hostigos proper.

Hostigos was an old town, mostly stone, with a few wooden buildings. There was new construction west and north of the town, but it was only a glimpse in the distance.

They rode into a large courtyard, where a portly man waited to greet them. “Welcome to Tarr Hostigos,” he told them. “I am Mytron, Rector of the High King’s University.” He bowed at Lady Becky. “Lady Becky, you are very welcome! Please, you and your personal guard, follow me!”

Befitting her rank, Noia trailed last. Her last glimpse of Captain Andromus was him looking wistfully at Lady Becky. The captain clearly doted on his sister and equally as clearly, wanted to catch Lady Becky’s eye. For a half moon Noia had dreamed what it would be like to catch a man’s eye. It was never going to happen as Noius and was unlikely to happen as Noia, unless they learned she was likely to be a countess. She’d have enough suitors then.

They went down a long corridor, then up a wide set of steps, to a room larger than any in her father’s county. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Mytron intoned, “the High King.”

High King Kalvan, lord of most of the known world, was a man in his late thirties, tanned and fit, with the eyes of eagles. His wife was barely thirty and even more tanned and fit, not to mention exceedingly blonde and buxom.

Everyone in the room bowed deeply to the High King when he was introduced.

He bobbed his head in response. “If we meet in private, please, just call me ‘Sire’ and keep the rest of the formal stuff for affairs of state.”

He turned to Lady Becky. “Count Errock and Duke Tuck both have nothing but good things to say about you. I welcome you to Hostigos and my University.”

“I’ve come to repay hospitality, Lord King,” Lady Becky said formally.

The High King bowed to her. “Hospitality is the duty of every man, Lady Becky. It was nothing.”

There was more back and forth about hospitality that Noia didn’t understand. They certainly seemed to be making a big deal out of it!

Finally, the High King ended it. “Lady Becky, we will talk at length, after you’ve had time to settle in and get with Mytron about schedules.” He grinned at the room. “We can’t leave our son alone too long, he’s twelve. Odds are he’s someplace taking apart a steam puller. Our daughter is fifteen and she is, I judge, off on a crag, a falcon on her sleeve and a smile on her face. Our twins, both the boy and girl, eight, are probably planning a way to glue their tutor’s behind to his desk. I should never have told them any stories of my childhood!”

There were polite laughs. The High King and his queen turned and withdrew.

Mytron bowed at them, and then turned to Lady Becky. “Lady, if you follow me, I’ll show you to your quarters.” He nodded to Trilium. “Sergeant, if you, Tanda Sa and the corporal will follow Brother Sergon, he’ll lead you to your rooms.”

Brother Sergon was a youth of about twelve, who had a happy grin on his face.

They followed him down two flights of steps, then back up four flights. Trilium finally growled, “Boy, I know when I’m going in circles. Explain yourself.”

The boy grinned again. “Just a few more feet, sir.” He led the way down a corridor and into a room. The High King and his queen were standing in the middle of the small room. The High King bowed at the young man who’d led them there.

The boy laughed. “Father, mother, may I present Lady Noia of North Port, Sergeant Trilium of the army of Zarthan and Tanda Sa of the Lost Ruthani, foster brother of Tanda Havra and the son of the Lion of the Ruthani.”

The High Queen grinned. “You did well, my son.”

“I’m sorry about the crack about taking apart a steam puller,” his father added.

The boy stuck his tongue out. “Father, tell me to get lost. You’ll know where to find me.”

“Get lost, kid!” The boy grinned and turned and left at a run.

The High Queen spoke. “Lady Noia, if you would, please attend me.”

She waved at a curtain across one end of the room. Noia bowed and followed the Queen as she walked regally and barely moved the curtains to pass through. Noia desperately wished she could walk as elegantly as the High Queen, or make such an elegant gesture.

They were in a corner of the room, with a rack with dresses hanging from it.

“Lady Noia, if it pleases you, you may change.”

“Lady Queen, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but is it safe?”

“As safe as my husband can make it. Safe enough.” She paused, obviously thinking.

“Lady Noia, my husband and I have no secrets. Thus, I’ve read about you. Once, I contemplated the world around me. I had a dead mother, a father who loved me, and enemies sufficient to fill anyone’s plate. I despaired more than once, Lady Noia. I dreamed...oh my Lady, I can’t begin to recount to you my dreams of despair! Nightmares of fear and terror!

“I agreed with my father that we had to resist Styphon, but it was hard to contemplate his death, the death of our town and our people. Me? Who cared about me?

“Then my husband came and suddenly it was like the world was bright and new and there was no reason to despair. There was bright hope, but Styphon resisted fiercely. There were victories, but then there were defeats, bitter defeats where those we loved or looked up to were killed. We were driven from our homes, and then those we left behind were foully murdered by torture, by priests as debased as the Mexicotál. 

“I had a daughter, and it was she who kept me alive through my depths of despair. I feared that I would never again see my home; I thought my husband indifferent to our return.

“My husband is the greatest king who has ever lived, Lady Noia! He knew the importance of firm foundations and our enemies gave him the time needed to build them.

“Then he threw down the houses of our enemies; he threw them down and donned the mantle of the High King. Lady Noia, I tell you true: sex is better, but the first time a general with his army genuflects in your presence, surrendering to you...that’s pretty darn good, too.”

She waved at the dresses. “Please, I’ve had to contemplate the end of dreams, the end of my world. I knew what I had to do to survive. I don’t know if I could have born up under the load and stayed sane without my daughter and without my husband. My instincts are to turn against my enemies and wade into them, my sword swinging. Stupid, pretty much. You, Lady Noia, you survived. You have no idea how much I respect someone who could do that.”

Noia bowed her head. “I feared for my life.”

“And I didn’t? I feared for my father as well–rightly, as he was killed. Most of all, I feared for our people and rightly there as well, as most of them died. Didn’t you fear for your loved ones?”

“Not enough, Highness. My brother poisoned my father. None of our people resisted, at least none that I saw.”

“Lady Noia, pick a dress or turn around and go out again, as you are. I swear to you, my husband and I both understand what you are going through. We will abide by your decision.”

Noia walked over to the rack, found a russet and brown dress that looked like it would fit. She glanced at the High Queen who stared back without expression. Noia undressed, down to her nethers, men’s nethers, and then tried on the dress. It fit relatively well.

“If you would like, there are other things available as well, but truth be known, I wear the same nethers as my husband. They are more convenient.”

Noia grimaced. “For now, I’ll stay with these.”

“You’re embarrassed about your breasts,” the High Queen said.

Noia looked at her, trying to keep her face expressionless.

“Lady Noia, once upon a time I was young and beautiful. My father had seen my breasts a few times, my husband many more times. My ladies of the court, many times. Once, a stable boy who surprised me when I was trying to replace a torn shirt. He fainted and I had to think quickly or my father would have assumed something else besides shyness.

“Lady, in those days I was younger, and men turned their heads to stare at my breasts, which I rarely bothered to bind. Then I met my husband who had, shall we say, loftier goals than my breasts. Not that he’s ever stinted on paying them homage.”

Noia blushed heavily.

“Yes, I really do understand, Lady Noia. I do. That was before our daughter was born. My breasts grew–substantially–before that day. After that day, they were huge. I didn’t recognize myself. My husband is a good man, and treated the extra as a sumptuous feast. Then a son, then twins.

“Lady Noia, now I bind my breasts tightly, else they tickle my navel. It is, my lady, the way of things. You aren’t pretty and your breasts aren’t either. These are minor things, of little concern, no matter how important they seem now.”

“Yes, Highness.”

“I met your queen once. My husband wasn’t happy that I went west on my own, leaving our children to his tender mercies. But I make my own choices. I met her; I liked her. She has, she says, a group of ladies who’ve had to give up all that they once held dear, to hold dear the things that are the most important of all. At first, I thought she was playing word games. Then I realized how true her words were. So yes, I’m a member of Elspeth’s circle of friends. I would be your friend as well.”

“You’re the High Queen!”

“Once I was a princess in a small principality where my father ruled wisely. My mother died giving me life, and I wish I could have met her, but other than that I was very happy. Then came Styphon and my father would not bend to them. Their demands for money and land were too high, their plans for our people too terrible to permit. Even letting them hold slaves where none held been held in two generations was too much.

“So, we chose to fight and thus we fell under Styphon’s Ban. We should have died. We expected to die. My father agonized about whether or not he should drag the people of Hostigos down to defeat with him. Circumstances made it all moot. He had to fight. I had to fight. We thought we’d die. We hoped it would be quick, except Kalvan appeared and what should have been quick was drawn out. Then he put it off indefinitely.”

Soon enough Noia stood in front of the others, wearing a dress. Really, it wasn’t that big of a thing. They’d all known, after all! And there was a formal dance and she was partnered with the High King, with Trilium and Tanda Sa, who she had to explain pretty much everything to.

By the end of the evening she was exhausted once again, but this time it felt different. It was as if a great weariness had fallen from her shoulders, a great weight had been lifted from her.

She smiled at the thought. No, actually the burden she bore was clearer now than ever before. There were things she had to do. For herself, for her father, for her people, for her king and for all the others of the world who wanted nothing more than the golden child Princess Rylla must have wanted: to live, have families, grow old and die in the fullness of their years, content in their achievements. At peace.

Men like her brother plotted and connived, wanting to steal the work of others for their own. They could not wait for the natural order of things. They would rather lie, cheat, steal and even kill to get that which wasn’t theirs by right. And if her brother smashed other people’s happiness and lives along the way? He wouldn’t care, his concerns were for himself.

There were enemies plotting against her, against her friends, against her king, and against these people here. Men and women who had taken in a stranger from afar, protected her, sheltered, and provided for her. She’d heard about the cult of hospitality that had grown up in Hostigos after the advent of the High King. She’d heard stories how Lord Tuck, Lady Judy and Queen Elspeth had repaid the hospitality shown to them by strangers who’d taken them in.

There would be no finer thing than if she repaid that hospitality as the others had. By defeating the enemies who came at them, by defending the lives of those who succored her, and defending all the other lives they helped. And if results were any measure of the gods’ favor, then they too agreed.

II

Judy surveyed the hill again, at the stationary soldiers atop it. She stepped back behind the little rise she was on, grinning. Every finger width they sat on the ridge, was another finger width closer her relief was. Hold a day and it would be over. It was getting close to High Sun, but this was spring, and the temperatures weren’t as brutal as they would be in the summer. They could hold here easily.

Behind her, she heard Captain Legios expounding to his new officer. This one wasn’t as clever a man as Lieutenant Smyla, evidently. She grinned again. It would be too much to hope that all the officers in the army were steady and competent!

One of the squadron lieutenants fetched up next to her. “Your grace, the rear guards report a party of men headed this way in a hurry, perhaps a half dozen, from the southeast.”

Judy nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Report to me when you have more information, or when they come up.”

It would be a terrible humiliation, she thought, if that was a half dozen of the scouts come from a wild goose chase, after she’d messaged their names earlier in the day back to Tecpan, and thence no doubt to Tuck, her husband and the Grand Marshal. She would have to stand up in front of the entire army and apologize.

Those thoughts swirled around for a moment, and she looked back southeast.

It was as swift and sudden as a mule kick. What was to the southeast? Zacateca. Without hesitation, she scanned the terrain once again. Legios’ words about General Denethon echoed in her ears. Denethon survived because he did the unexpected! What was she going to have to do to be able to survive?

Two finger widths later a dusty sergeant was brought to her. She nodded politely to him. “Sergeant Talphon. I take it that things are not well in Zacateca.”

The sergeant blinked in surprise. “No, your grace, indeed they are not. King Xyl’s army marched in, starting at dawn today. The city has gone back to the King in Tenosh.”

“How many men?”

He shook his head. “Your grace, a loyal man, the name of whom I’ll whisper in your ear later, came to us, camped to the northwest of the city, as we were training their soldiers. He told me that the Council had seized all of the High King’s soldiers in Zacateca, and other soldiers were en route to take us. That he had no idea how many men were coming to the city, but the column of troops stretched for miles. He could see a column three miles long. He could not see either the beginning or the end of the column. At least four miles, your grace.”

Judy nodded. Column of fours, a yard and a half between rows. Five thousand men per mile. Twenty thousand soldiers into Zacateca, at a minimum.

“And the city? Was it quiet?”

“Yes, my lady. The man said they’d been assured that there would be no reprisals if loyal men returned to their king, that there was a new king in Tenosh and that he agreed that the sacrifices and the taxes of the old king and priests were unjust and had ended them.”

Judy thanked him and the sergeant stood, unsure. “Your grace, I think you should withdraw at once, towards Tecpan.”

He spoke nervously, knowing that some officers would have his head for speaking up. Lord Tuck valued such comments, though, and so did she.

“Come,” she said and walked the dozen yards to the top of the rise and waved at the ridgeline beyond. “There are twenty thousand reasons why trying to move north just now might not be wise.”

The sergeant sucked wind. “Your grace, I meant no impertinence!”

“That was not impertinence, Sergeant! You have done your duty today, none can say differently! I’ll get back to you shortly with orders.”

She stood looking out over what was sure to be a battlefield. Would they really attack today? She was quite sure they would. Except they wouldn’t weight their attack to the north as she’d expected, it would be weighted to the south, to lull her into belief that she could withdraw in order towards Tecpan.

She cast her eyes to the south, where her cavalry was, out of touch and out of contact. Never split your forces, she’d been told. And I thought I was too good to have to worry about the little things! Leave my artillery at home, split off my cavalry...

For the first time in her life she contemplated not what Tuck would do, but what would General Denethon do. Legios came to stand next to her, the two Mortar brothers with him.

“My lady,” Legios said quietly. “What is the news?”

“Zacateca has fallen to Xyl. They are behind us, to the southeast.”

“How many of them?” Big Mortar asked.

“At least twenty thousand, the sergeant told me. Probably we’ll face at least that many, probably several times that. They’ll know who is facing them.” She swept the Duke’s Helm off her black hair. “So, no more games.”

She turned Legios. “I’ve decided to try to think like General Denethon for this battle, Captain.”

Legios chuckled. “My lady, that is the best news I’ve heard since the war was over!”

“Captain, we have two hundred and fifty rounds per mortar? You can fire about twenty-five times safely in rapid fire?”

“Yes, Countess.”

“On my command, I want all sixty of the tubes to fire on the ridgeline to our right front, twenty rounds each. Forty tubes on the center, ten tubes on each flank. I want those rounds to be right in among them, as quickly as possible, and then I want the rest of the rounds fired as quickly as possible. They have to be hitting the top of the ridge, do you understand?”

Legios nodded his understanding.

“As soon as you’ve fired the twenty rounds, put the tubes on horses and we’ll withdraw at once.

“Short, I want you to command the mounted companies. We’ll move the mounts up directly behind this rise in the next few finger widths. Until the signal, I want the men on the line doing nothing different than what they are now. As soon as the mortars start to explode on that hill, not when they’re fired, mind, but after they start landing, do a slow fifteen count, then have the trumpeter sound assembly. What that means is that everyone hustles over the rise and mounts up.

“I want the wagons unloaded, and everything that we can put on horses, and everything else prepared for destruction. As soon as assembly is blown, that will be the signal to start the fires.

“That will be in about a palm width, sooner if we can get ready faster. I don’t want those soldiers on the ridge to think we’re up to something, not until it happens.

“As soon as we break from here, I want four men sent southeast, towards the big ridge there. I don’t want to point, I don’t want any of you to point, but over my left shoulder is a large gap in that ridge. We will first head southeast, as if we’re headed for Zacateca. In about a palm width, we’ll turn to the left and dash for that gap. As soon as we turn, so will our ‘point.’”

Legios was studying the ground. “I hope it goes all the way through,” he said quietly.

“It does. They will have to come down from that ridge, which will take time, especially after twelve hundred mortar rounds. They can either go northeast and try to cut us off that way, pursue us directly or let us go. Before we get to that gap I’ll make a decision about whether or not we’ll set up an ambush somewhere in the mountains. Probably yes, if it’s a close pursuit, probably not if there’s no real pursuit.

“Once we’re through those mountains, and that’s a seven thousand foot ridge, we’ll turn northeast and keep going until tomorrow around High Sun. We’ll rest a little then, and start again as soon as the sun starts down. The moon will be only a little help tonight, and not much more tomorrow night. It doesn’t look like there will be clouds to interfere with that.”

Big Mortar laughed. “A good thing! That canyon wouldn’t be a good place to be if it looks like rain! I saw it on the maps, Countess. The river that’s to our north comes through the gap. The canyon is deep and so are the gullies here, miles from those mountains. When it rains hard here, all that water comes through that gap.”

“Let’s go make things happen,” she told them. “A palm width!”

Everyone walked away, as if there was no rush, only Legios stayed behind. “We could wait a while longer and let them attack,” he said, looking up at the ridge ahead of him. “We defeat them and then go north.”

“I thought about that,” Judy told him. “Then I got to thinking about what we truly know and what we truly don’t. Sergeant Talphon and the others from Zacateca didn’t see any of Xyl’s soldiers. A loyal man warned them and they fled at once. I don’t doubt that Xyl’s in Zacateca. The question is, are these soldiers and those in Zacateca acting in concert? And how many columns of soldiers are there out here?

“They know we sent a long message earlier. I’ve deliberately not passed on the message we just got. That will wait until just before we’re ready to go. I wouldn’t want them to think we’ve received some urgent message.”

Legios nodded at that.

“If they are in concert, and if they think I was going to be clever and turn the battle so that we’re both facing the wrong way, we could have ended up in major trouble tomorrow. I don’t want them thinking we’ve been warned, because that might cause them to react differently.”

“And the cavalry?” Legios asked.

Judy glanced to her right, at the hills there. “They should still be within four or five miles. They will hear the artillery, and hopefully that will make them pause and look around. They should see our dust cloud and deduce that the plan has changed. If we’re headed southeast, we’re not going to be attacking to the southwest at first light. I imagine we’ll see them before nightfall.”

Captain Legios nodded. “I will go make sure things are ready, Countess.”

“I would be upset about having to flee,” Judy told him, “except Tuck has had to do it a few times. Even the High King has had to feign retreat.”

The young captain put his thumb in the air. “We will fox ‘em!”

III

Tanda Havra dandled her son on her knee, giving him a horse ride. He squealed with glee, wanting more, more, more! She was only too happy to oblige, knowing that it would also cause her husband, sitting behind his desk, to look up and smile at the both of them. It was a nice game, in many ways!

Sure enough, he did look up from the pile of papers and smile. Ah! That smile! It was going to be a very, very good night!

As if to show the Gods’ displeasure at her happiness, one of the signal sergeants tapped at the open door to the Duke of Mexico’s office and stuck his head in. “Sire, a message.”

“Come, sergeant!”

The sergeant was far more diffident than one would normally expect. All men knew that Lord Tuck, the Duke of Mexico, was a fair man. His wife, of course, wasn’t, but the message wasn’t for her, was it?

The sergeant held the message out and Tuck took it. “Sir, I have to say that Lieutenant Harphon had me bring this, even though the message isn’t complete.”

Tuck looked at the sergeant and nodded, then started reading.

The message evidently wasn’t long, because it was just a few heartbeats before Tuck looked up at the sergeant. “Would your officer be a junior or senior lieutenant, Sergeant?”

“It’s junior lieutenant, Highness.”

“Please convey my deepest regards to Senior Lieutenant Harphon. Tell him he has the thanks of Mexico and Hostigos this day. On your way out, please see Colonel Andromoth and ask him to please attend me at once. Be sure that as soon as the message is complete that it is delivered to me without delay.”

The sergeant blinked, even as Tanda stood, putting her son with the odd name, John, down, and stretching out her hand for the message.

Tuck gave it to her, and then was rummaging in his desk. In a few moments he was putting both of his original pistols around his belt.

Tanda finished reading, and then reached for the bell she carried in a pocket in her vest. She had hated it at first, for all that it was highly useful. Eventually, she’d understood that the alternative to ringing the bell was to have a servant standing forever at her shoulder, waiting on her command.

Lady Inisa hurried in and Tanda handed John over to her. “Please tell Corporal Skola to see to my field gear at once. A palm width?”

Tuck nodded absently while rereading the message once more.

Colonel Andromoth entered, knowing that if Duke Tuck said at once, that all else had to wait.

“Colonel Andromoth, please parade the garrison. Every last man and woman. At once, please, in the town square. Their uniforms are of no consequence. Send runners through the town and tell the people that I will be speaking in the square in two finger widths.”

Colonel Andromoth had been at Tuck’s side for nearly two years now, and he knew his superior’s moods and voice. He simply saluted again and sprinted from the office, calling on the clerks as he went.

He had hardly been gone before drums began to rattle and trumpets blare.

“She will be okay, Tuck,” Tanda told him. “She has Legios with her, plus a lot of good men, including Vosper.”

He reached out and pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. “It’s not Judy I fear for, but for Mexico.”

There was no answer to that, because Tanda knew it to be true. Treason was always bad, particularly on the battlefield. If Tuck had been on that battlefield the result would be a foregone conclusion. In truth, Tanda knew, her husband had never been ambushed or surprised in her experience. Judy, however, had such experience.

She grinned at the thought that the new King of the Olmecha hadn’t sent a tenth enough men to do that job, treason or no! But it would be the collateral damage that would do the most hurt to Mexico and the High King’s realm.

They walked through the offices, not hurrying, letting their officers and sergeants do their duty.

Men were standing in ranks, although those ranks were still uneven and in constant motion as more and more men formed up.

Tuck walked through the middle of them and climbed up on the fountain in the center of the square. They’d made a small platform for him to stand on; her husband purely hated the balcony of the former Governor’s Palace where they lived these days.

He turned and faced the soldiers, even though men were still running full tilt to reach their places. Tuck raised both hands, and the noise died down almost at once, even as men continued to jockey for position.

The same sergeant as before came running up to Tanda, handing her the rest of the message. Tanda thanked the man gravely and passed it on to Tuck. It was a list of thirty-two names and it took her only a glance to read it. None of them were known to her, except for the officer, for which she breathed a sigh of relief. She had never liked the man, anyway.

The square was now filled with thousands of men, swirls of dust from their passage still fogging the air. Tuck pulled his arms down.

“As we speak, Countess Judy is fighting King Xyl’s soldiers northwest of Zacateca. They have made a serious error of judgment, bringing only two men for the countess’ one.”

There was a moment of silence, then a roar of laughter.

“Yes, it’s true. Soon enough, the signals will tell of another of the armies of our enemies that has been slaughtered, the survivors running for home as fast as their feet can carry them.

“However, I have the most grievous news to tell you,” Tuck’s voice easily rode over the crowd’s.

The sound quickly died away. More and more of the townspeople were appearing every heartbeat; Tanda knew her husband, knew he was pacing his speech with their numbers. At a certain point he would say the fell words that could well mean the end of Mexico, if cool and wise heads didn’t prevail.

“I tell you this next with a warning, a caution, and laying a most strict duty upon each man, woman and child who can hear my voice.

“My warning is that if you do not listen closely, you will endanger everyone in the Duchy of Mexico. My caution is that you must think carefully, act wisely and with cool heads instead of hot anger.

“The news is most foul. I know not how many of them actually turned their coats, most, I would think, but of the thirty-two scouts of Mexico assisting Lady Judy, none reported the twenty thousand of the God-King’s soldiers sitting on a ridge line to Countess Judy’s west. None of those scouts have been seen since yesterday, but their lieutenant messaged the countess at dawn today that the way was clear.

“This is a matter of the utmost importance to the realm. No man may be charged with a crime, particularly high treason, without just cause. I will read a list of names to you shortly. If you know of someone with one of those names, tell your local constable or your sergeant. Please, do not go up to any of these men and confront them...most are innocent men with merely the misfortune to have the name of someone involved in this fell deed.

“Please, do not assume that someone else will inform the constable: do it yourself.

“Eventually we will know those who truly turned their backs on us and against Mexico. I promise you, those men will not meet a kind fate.

“Then, alas, we will have to go among you and find out the names of friends and families of those men. Again, many of those people will be innocent of this treason. Please, let those of you charged with this duty, do what must be done. Don’t take it upon yourselves to deal with it.

“It is a terrible thing to know that there might be others who serve King Xyl among us, hiding in secret to betray us. Some might feel it is their duty to act in my name, in the name of the people, to root out such treason. No, please no. Allow those whose duty it truly is handle such things.

“Now, my soldiers, those of you in the alert division, report to your barracks and prepare to march at once. Everyone else in the field army, return to your barracks and prepare to march at dawn, tomorrow.”

He hopped down and without a further word, walked back to the palace, Tanda at his side, Colonel Andromoth a step behind them.

When they were once again in Tuck’s office, Tanda’s husband sat at his desk and wrote a sentence on a sheet of paper, then signed it. “See this is published tomorrow, Brigadier Andromoth.”

Andromoth swallowed. “Can you make me a general, Duke Tuck?”

“The High King’s exact words to me were: ‘I’d prefer it if you would refer the name of anyone you want to be made a general to me, for a final decision.’ I don’t have time to wait further, Colonel...I sent that request three moons ago.

“You will have Xipototec while I’m gone. Call out a division of the militia, put another on alert. Set up a rigorous training schedule: cannons, rifles, and mortars. I doubt if we will have anything to worry about just yet, but the refresher will be useful and will concentrate everyone’s attention on the danger we face.”

“Yes, Lord Tuck!”

“Tomorrow at High Sun, parade the garrison and read out the list of names. Let the people know you’re going to talk, so that they can be there. The word will spread fast enough. Once again caution everyone to do the minimum, tell the authorities if they know one of the men. I don’t want a sorcerer hunt.”

“I’m still in shock, Duke Tuck, that so many men could turn their coats...”

“Probably half or maybe two thirds didn’t. Those men probably died in their sleep. Judy knows enough to look for the bodies, but the plotters may have sought to cover their tracks.”

“Lord Tuck, the winter harvest is nearly finished. I think we will manage to get the rest in without too much trouble. The spring planting is in a moon, sire, and that might be more of a problem if we have to call up more militia.”

“The Counselor of Agriculture has been keeping lists for the last year or so about who plants what when, and what they expect to plant next. Fetch those lists. The Counselor will be able to tell you which crops, which plantings will be the most important. Assign general labor to make sure the work gets done on the important locations in a timely fashion, if the farmer in question has been called up.”

“Yes, sir!”

Tuck handed Andromoth a folded piece of paper. “Please have this coded, using the High King’s own code. Send it tomorrow well before High Sun. Be sure to send any reply to me at once.”

Andromoth unfolded the paper and looked at the message. “Sir...this is war!”

“And you think twenty thousand of their soldiers attacking Lady Judy from ambush is peace?”

Andromoth grimaced. “But, sir, after the last war I heard the High King say he wished we hadn’t won so handsomely.”

“And thus he gave all the lands we gained right back, right?”

Andromoth shook his head. In fact, they’d demanded by treaty any ground where the Army of Mexico had fought and won, and since they had won all their fights, that meant the border was well south of the towns they had captured.

“Andromoth, you’re a good man. Let’s just say that I’m willing to bet that if I take Huspai, King Xyl will behave himself for another year and that the High King will grumble some more, but show no signs of giving it back.”

Andromoth laughed. “It is something I remarked on during the war, Duke Tuck. That kings don’t often give back what they take by force of arms.”

“And, husband,” Tanda interjected, “I know you no doubt have a clever plan, but Huspai has forty thousand defenders behind a sixty-foot wall that is thirty feet thick. We will only be able to throw twenty thousand men at those walls. It would be Galzar’s special miracle if even one of our soldiers reached the base of those walls alive.”

Tuck chuckled. “Ah, but I have the War God’s Mace on my side! Tomorrow, you will tell the second division that we march to Lady Judy’s relief. I will mention to the first division today that we will be joined by the Grand Marshal’s army as well.

“Not that I plan on actually inviting Hestophes, and I imagine Lady Judy plans on retiring to Tecpan after the battle. Which, by the way, is going to be a terrible, terrible blow to the King Xyl.” 

“How is that, Lord Tuck?” Andromoth asked.

“Why, you have to read what she didn’t say, General. King Xyl’s men are planning on blocking her way north. But if they do, guess where Judy will be?”

“Blocking their way south,” Tanda Havra answered before the general could even take an instant to think.

“Yes, and about then, they will get the message from their intelligencers that we are coming from the west, Hestophes from the east and that they’re all dead men. Odds are, even though our combined armies can’t threaten them for a moon quarter, they’ll panic and run.”

“And our army will be doing what, husband?” Tanda asked.

He grinned wickedly. “Oh, we’ll be somewhere close by. Close to Huspai.”

Tanda waved for Andromoth to go and he did. “I wait until dawn and take the second division?”

“Yes. Not to mention the logistics and the artillery.”

“And those who command the division, what of them?”

He smiled. “You are their Captain-General, you tell them what to do. You will march east until past the first ridge, and then turn south. We will be waiting for you where we faced Captain-General Thanos. Then we will go south together. I swear, I won’t take any risks. I assume you won’t either.”

She smiled at him but didn’t say anything.

IV

Puma took two swift strides and came even with Shuria, pointing up and to the right. He saw what she saw and grimaced. The men on the hillside fired, the first half dozen bullets going wide.

Shuria spun on his heel and went behind a mesquite tree. Puma found cover behind a small pile of rocks. She could still see Shuria, who lifted his rifle, pointed towards their enemies and then held up two fingers. Two shots, she figured.

He had a much better spot, she realized, when a heartbeat later his rifle spoke. There was a clatter of rocks up the hill as a man came tumbling down.

Sure that all eyes were now on her comrade, Puma sank to the ground, and peeped around the base of the rocks. Five men were finishing up reloading, and when they started to lift their rifles, she shot the one who seemed the quickest.

Reloading while sitting down wasn’t an art she’d ever practiced. She told herself that she would practice, first thing. The four remaining shots came her way, the bullets thudding into the rocks. A good thing, she thought, as it hadn’t been much of a tree that Shuria was hiding behind.

She looked his way, but wasn’t surprised to see that he was gone. Her glance had been only momentary, and then she went back to watching the four men left on the hill.

They would expect her to move, so she shot the first of them to lift his rifle once again. Then another shot from well off to the side drilled a man who leaned forward to get a better shot at Puma.

She saw the two survivors trade glances, and then they were running like jackrabbits along the hill. She was mildly unhappy when Shuria fired a third time, but she’d reloaded as well, just not as fast. She took a deep breath, relaxed, and squeezed the trigger. There were still two men running, but one had dropped his rifle and was holding his arm against his chest. She hurried up her reload and drew her rifle down again.

The two men merged for a heartbeat and she fired. They both went down. Her only movement was to stand and reload faster this time.

Shuria joined her a heartbeat later. “They were fools,” he told her. “I never thought we could kill them all. Still, where there are a half dozen, there are bound to be more. The firing will attract them. We’ll have to slow, and, I think, go a little further north.”

Puma looked at the ridge ahead of them. It was taller towards the north and Shuria’s map said the next ridge was even taller yet, perhaps nine thousand feet. They started moving again, but this time not at their fastest. Not only that, they no longer ran in the open, but stuck to dead ground, washes and just below ridge tops.

By the time the sun was setting behind the ridge they reached the top of the first ridge. Shuria took a short break, cupping his hands around his eyes, peering at a great column of dust in the area between the ridges.

Puma sat quietly, watching him. Finally he turned to her. “Those are Olmechan soldiers out there. They must be in pursuit of the countess!”

He looked at her closely. “You can’t see them, can you?”

Puma spat. “Of course, I can see a great many men crossing the desert floor! I’m not blind!”

“But you can’t see who they are, can you?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “How do you hunt the great cats without eyes like an eagle?”

She bowed her head. “I cheat.”

“You cheat?”

“Yes.”

“You call out to the cat and he obligingly stands still so you can shoot him and steal his teeth?”

“Yes.”

“I was joking.”

“I was not. I hunt them during my moon flow. They come to me. The females are less territorial, and if you know what to look for, their territory markings are clear. So I go upwind from where the male lairs, even if I don’t know exactly where. I let the wind bring him to me.”

He swallowed. “You lay in ambush of the great cats?”

She nodded.

He bowed his head towards her. “Come!”

He got up and they went back over the ridge. “Are you rested, Puma?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Drink, eat. In half a finger width I will signal those on the ridge behind us. I’ll apologize for stealing their rifles and tell them what we have seen.”

“Won’t they be upset?”

“I will promise to throw them a party back at Xipototec. It’s become a tradition, Puma, to throw parties at Xipototec.”

“Maybe so, but...”

“Eat, girl. Drink. We have to be down from this ridge before dark.”

Puma was as brave as anyone, but going down the backside of a ridge, already in shadow, with full darkness fast approaching, was going to be dangerous. She took a sip of water, and then started chewing some jerky.

Shuria took out a mirror, and began to flash it west. Flashes answered and he ran a long series, then they came back with a long series of their own. He gave them a short series, they returned a shorter series, and he grunted, and just made a few flashes.

“Come! When we’re down, we will talk!”

Why waste talk on someone who could be dead in a few finger widths? Of course, he could die, too. That would be awkward!

Shuria had a good eye for terrain and the way was fairly easy. In less than half a palm width they were breathing hard on the desert floor, after descending a ridge they’d spent most of the afternoon climbing.

“Zacateca, to the southeast, has been retaken by King Xyl. Lady Judy decided that the plan was to trap her, so she withdrew. There is a gap in the ridge ahead, south of us. She went through it and has turned north, intending on linking up with Lord Gamelin, now a day, a day and a half to the northeast.”

He grinned at her. “Lady Judy has few scouts, so we will be of great utility when we reach her. And our Mexicotál cousins on that mountain behind us want not only beer and wine for their party, but a cow as well. If we help Lady Judy, she will rescue us!”

Puma nodded like she understood.

“We can, if we hurry, join her at dawn,” Shuria went on. “Unless you are too tired.”

Puma grimaced. Yes, she was too tired. But she was her father’s daughter. “I’m not that tired,” she said curtly, with as much spirit as she could muster.

At least there was a sufficient moon, and they reached the top of the much higher ridge well after midnight. They did not run down the other side, but they did go quickly.

About a half palm width before full light, they pulled up in the middle of a dirt track. “Hold your rifle, butt upwards, over your head. Put on your necklaces,” Shuria commanded her. Both of them could hear the sound of many horses coming towards them.

It didn’t take a finger width before they were surrounded by mounted soldiers. Shuria called out to them, saying his name and that he was cousin to Tanda Havra. The soldiers were quickly efficient. Two men disarmed them, then they were put up behind others, and a half dozen of the vanguard turned back south, while the rest cantered on.

Shuria hadn’t introduced Puma, which wasn’t a surprise. It was clear that none of these soldiers knew him, either. The vanguard was less than two miles ahead of the main body. Puma was sorry that she was nearly asleep when they reached them, but there was enough of a stir to rouse her to full wakefulness.

“Shuria of the Ruthani!” A tall woman, riding her horse easily, greeted Puma’s companion. “Sorry, the cavalry are new. Please, Vosper, see to mounts for Shuria and his lady friend.”

Shuria bowed to her, with a big grin on his face. “Countess Judy of Tecpan, this is Puma, daughter of the Lion of the Ruthani!”

Puma saw the countess regard her, her eyes pausing on Puma’s fangs. “Your father, Lady Puma, was a giant oak, a man of towering and enduring strength. You can tell such, by how many of his acorns have landed close to the tree.”

Puma had to think about that and she lifted her chin. “I am full sister to Tanda Sa, half sister to Leem.”

“Like I said,” Lady Judy said dryly. “Come, we have to keep going. We’re going to stop at midmorning.”

“They were entering the gap last night as the light faded,” Shuria told her.

The countess bobbed her head in thanks. “We’re a little short of scouts, as you may have heard. It wouldn’t be a good idea to try to keep a close watch on them.”

Shuria laughed. “We have been awake for two and a half days, Countess! If we stop to watch, we will sleep!”

“Well, you can get some rest in a few palm widths then, when we do. We’ll have been awake a day and a half then, ourselves. Not that we won’t make use of you after that!”


	11. The World Grows

I

Noia awoke late in the morning, washed and spent more time making something of the mess that was her hair. Shortly before High Sun, Lady Becky knocked on her door and asked if she wanted lunch. Thinking it would be something small and informal, Noia agreed.

Instead, there were a very great many people present, mostly teachers and assistants from the High King’s University, come to meet Lady Becky. Noia herself was placed at Lady Becky’s side, and as people were introduced to Lady Becky, they were then introduced to Lady Noia.

She’d been six summers or so, the first time she’d been presented at Count Echanistra’s court. She remembered her uncle easily enough, but the rest of the names and faces were a blur. Today was the same thing–not to mention there were quite a few more names and faces than had ever attended Count Echanistra’s Great Hall.

One thing that was clear was the sheer variety of the titles. Master this and master that, and scholars above all. Those were men and women who studied things but had taken a different path than being apprenticed to a master.

She commented on it to Lady Becky while they waited for the others to be seated. The High King overheard her and laughed. “Lady Noia, there is nothing that attracts competent men more than self-interest. If a master is willing to teach his or her knowledge here at the University for ten palm widths a moon quarter, they may attend any other class for free. In addition, we count up the number of palm widths they average teaching over the year per moon quarter and they get that many gold Kalvans.”

Noia remembered a big furor a few years before in North Port. A master builder had been hired to construct a new dock into the harbor. He had hardly started work before it became apparent he was no master builder and probably had never seen a dock before, either.

The other masters were enraged that someone would try to pass himself off as a master and had wanted dire punishments. Her father had laughed, and then took everything the man possessed even unto the clothes on his back, rolled him in the mud and sprinkled him liberally with bird feathers. The fake had been taken to the edge of the county, a corporal’s outsize boot had been applied to the man’s fundament and he’d been ejected from the county.

“Highness,” she’d asked the High King, “how do you prevent fraud?”

He chuckled. “It’s a headache! Many men know many things; frequently they know several different ways to do something, and there are honest differences of opinion about which method is best. But yes, there are outright frauds.

“We have a special committee, elected by our teachers, who examine a peer. I also have a board of appeal, appointed by myself, including Scholar Mytron and a few others. Mostly I appoint men and women who’ve done something singularly brilliant, preferably going against the common wisdom.”

He lowered his voice a bit, even though he was still talking to Noia across Lady Becky. “This afternoon, come and see me. I hope you haven’t unpacked.”

“No, highness, I haven’t unpacked. I think I’ve forgotten how.”

He chuckled and then turned to someone else, listening to a proposal for a new wing of classrooms at the University.

Later she and Trilium were led to a small room where the High King sat alone at a table. He waved for them to sit. There was a guard standing near the door. He was wearing a brace of pistols and looked quite fierce.

“So, you want to join the navy and see the world, eh?” the High King asked them.

“Yes, highness,” Noia replied.

“Tanda Sa has petitioned me,” the High King told her. “He got the grand tour of the University this morning and sat in on a class in military tactics. He’s decided that he’d rather do something else. He wishes to go with you.”

“Me?” That surprised Noia.

“Yes. It’s one of those oddities that are hard to explain. Many men who live far from the sea learn to love it. Men who live close to the sea find they love the desert. There is room for all sorts, under the vault of the heavens.”

Noia nodded...that was a truth! She turned to Trilium. “Sergeant?”

He shrugged. “Lady Noia, our people and the Ruthani have been enemies for as long as history records. Even now, their northern brothers fight against us. Yet I’ve seen him; I’ve talked with him. If he’s not a true man, then I am no judge of men. In any case, it should be your choice.”

Noia considered and then nodded. “If that is his wish, so be it.”

“Good!” The High King gestured and the man at the door opened it and said something, and a moment later Tanda Sa joined them.

The High King picked up something from the floor. It was covered with a drape so that they couldn’t see what it was. “This is one of my secrets, do you understand?”

“Yes, highness,” Noia told him. The others acknowledged him as well.

“Good. I’m sorry about this, Tanda Sa, but I’m afraid you’re about to get some more classroom time in.” He lifted the drape on his side, adjusted whatever it was, and then tossed the drape aside.

The object was round like a ball and had lines drawn on it, with areas that were colored in blue and brown. There was a brown swath that ran down the side that faced them, starting near the top, and going around towards the bottom. There was blue around the edges, and top and bottom of the ball were colored white.

“This is what our world looks like, if we were standing on the moon,” the High King told them.

Noia considered the very many stories and tales she’d heard about the shape of the world. Round like a ball was one of them, and perhaps of all the stories, the one that seemed to explain things best.

“I’m not going to spend much time teaching you about the study of the heavens, but basically everything you can see up there is shaped like this. The sun, the other stars, the moon, the planets.”

“The other stars?” Noia asked.

“Aye, the sun is a star just like those pinpricks you see at night in the rest of the sky. It’s just a lot closer. The Earth circles the sun, as do all the planets. The moon circles the Earth. Again, all I ask is that you believe me for the time being.”

Noia nodded, staring at the ball in front of her. A representation of the world! How many sailors, how many men had speculated on what lay beyond the far horizons? Legend had it that men had come here from the Winter Kingdom, through the Cold Lands of the north. But you died if you tried to go that way, now!

“Many things about how these bodies in the sky are arranged will be important to you, Lady Noia, as you learn ships, but that will come later.” He pointed to a spot in the northern part of the ball, half way up the upper half, towards one edge. “Here is where we are. Later, you can take a closer look and see the approximate boundaries of the various Great Kingdoms and Hostigos.”

He pointed things out, including Echanistra, but North Port was too minor to see on the map. Then he pointed out the God-King’s lands to the south. “You will see that the God-King’s lands narrow as you go further south, until here, where they meet the southern continent, they are very narrow indeed.” He drew a line that ran across the middle of the ball.

“This is the equator. Again, you have to trust me on this. The ball that is our planet spins around, while the sun essentially stays still. It takes the Earth roughly four palm widths to rotate so that the sun goes from overhead at Hostigos to overhead in Baytown.

“As you go further south, the sun moves higher and higher in the sky at High Sun until you reach the equator, where it would be directly overhead at High Sun. And, I might add, that doesn’t change, either.

“We have not explored south of the God-King’s realm, because ships that try to go past his lands are destroyed. His lands are so huge and ships are so slow, they are always seen and intercepted. While I know the shape of the land south of the God-King’s lands, I have no knowledge of how far south his lands extend.”

He moved his finger north and traced a peninsula that stuck out like a finger into the blue sea. “This is Hos Bletha and it’s a peninsula. The southern portion of this peninsula is a vast swamp. That swamp is filled with hungry lizards, poisonous snakes, poisonous insects and terrible diseases.

“This sort of swamp requires close proximity to the sea and has to be flat–which is why the mountainous northern regions of the God-King’s land, southern Zarthan and the lands of the Lost Ruthani are all desert. There are mountains that comb what little water is in the air out, and they are far from the sea.

“As the lands south of the God-King’s heartland narrows, they become such swamps as Hos Bletha. The southern continent’s eastern parts are a swamp the size of my lands here in the northern continent. What sort of people are there, I have no way of knowing. Along the western coast of the land there is a range of mountains like Mountain Wall in Zarthan, except taller and many times longer.

“The information I’ve gotten from spies and refugees tells me very little. The best information I have is that the area is lightly settled and dangerous. The God-Kings have sent many expeditions south, but no one really seems to know what they found or what they did. My intelligencers are working on it.”

He looked at them for a moment, and then moved the ball, turning it so the west passed out of sight, the blue dominated. Finally a new land mass was visible. Again, there was a large mass to the north that extended further out of sight, and a smaller one to the south, rimmed by ocean.

“For the time being we call these the ‘Northeastern continent’ and the ‘Southeastern continent’ and the small sea that separates them the ‘Middle Sea.’”

He reached down and put what looked like a long bronze spearhead on the table next to the ball.

“A few years ago one of my ships approached this island here, off the coast of the Northeastern continent. Short, bandy-legged men who were painted blue and wore leather armor met it at the water line, throwing spears tipped like this at the ship. They seem to think that all ships coming from the sea belong to raiders. They weren’t interested in talking to us at all. The ship put in at different places and always met the same reception. They could see signal fires on headlands, and realized that the islanders were spreading word of their coming.

“They found a deserted cove, killed some local deer, got some additional water and turned back, per their orders.”

Noia tried to digest what she’d just been told. It didn’t seem to make much sense. “Lord Kalvan, please, there must be something that I don’t understand.”

“Well, I’m not entirely sure I understand either,” he told her. “In a short while another expedition will go back to the Northeastern continent, this one better prepared. They will go to the mainland and see if they have more luck. Failing that, when they start back they’ll stop at the island again.

“The ship’s captain will be ordered to try every method to obtain a parley, to establish some sort of contact. But if that fails...” The High King looked very, very bleak.

“I have ordered men into battle; I’ve watched my wife giving birth. I’ve given many difficult and dangerous orders, including orders that have caused thousands and even hundreds of thousands of deaths. I watched someone I love more than anything else risk her life bearing our children. Nonetheless, the orders I will give the captain of that ship trouble me as much as anything as I’ve ever done.

“I have ordered my captain to kidnap one of the locals and return him to Hostigos. I told him that if he brings back a woman, I’ll hang him myself. I told him if a hair on the man’s head is harmed, I’ll kill him myself. The first thing he is to convey to the prisoner is that we will keep him safe at all costs, and return him home before the year is over and that he will be well rewarded, no matter what else he says or does.”

The High King looked then, every inch the man who had conquered a continent. “This is information we absolutely must have.”

He turned the ball the other way, until it was Zarthan, North Port, and Echanistra on the edge of visibility. “This is the Great Western Ocean. It is nearly twice the width of the Great Eastern Ocean.” His finger ran down the coastline of another continent. “This is the Western Continent. I suppose scholars will argue about it, as it runs continuously to the Great Eastern Ocean and what we’ve named the northeastern continent.

“Someday, Noia, I hope you will lead an expedition there, to find the home of our ancestors, to find what has passed there since they came to this place and found a wide, fair land.”

His eyes blazed. “Land they promptly stole from the Ruthani who’d been here before them.”

“That was a long time ago,” Noia said carefully.

“Yes, and the battle still rages. I wish I could tell you about that battle, but you are better off never knowing such things.

“Tomorrow, you, Sergeant Trilium and Tanda Sa will depart for Harphax City. There you will report to Admiral Daimondes, the man who commands my navy. He will discuss various things with you, and then you’ll be assigned to Captain Mem, who will be your captain for the time being.

“First you will spend a moon going over plans and watching construction of one of my new ships. Another moon watching such a ship armed and readied for sea. Another moon aboard the new ship as it goes through its trials: no ship should go to sea without careful testing to make sure it’s sound and training the crew. Those trials, Lady Noia, will take place as that ship moves southward.

“Before fall you will be in Hos Bletha, at a new sea base we’ve established there. There’s a good harbor there and the town is named Blassdorf. By the time you arrive, the ship and crew should have had a good shakedown. There you will operate under the command of the local captain, Captain Adityos.”

He moved the ball around and pointed to where they would be. “Here is a long thin island, some ninety miles south of the mainland,” he said as he pointed to it.

“The God-King has established a presence on most of these islands. In the past, the king of Hos Bletha would raid some of them, but those raids were pretty small potatoes.

“Lady Noia, the sea has never been a significant factor in wars among the Zarthani up until now. It will be in the future. This area here will be a critical battlefield.” His hand covered the water area between Hos Bletha and the God-King’s lands.

“There are innumerable islands, many with decent bays and ports for ships. For the next hundred years, unless one side or the other gets lucky or the other side makes a huge mistake, we will be fighting there.

“As it will be on the other coast. Your South March has a decent anchorage; Baytown’s harbor is huge, very huge. The ships along your southern coast will have to be on particular lookout for an invasion force. Hostigos and our allied kingdoms are being rapidly fitted with the steam puller roads. We will be able to quickly respond to an attack in those lands.

“Zarthan is far, far away. Even the steam pullers can only run where there are rails for its road. Building even a single line west is a tremendous undertaking. King Freidal and Queen Elspeth are doing what they can, but the fact remains that while Zarthan has much gold and huge quantities of food, it lacks abundant iron, coal and other important raw materials.

“Zarthan will be lucky to fit out a tenth as many ships as I can, and it may well be many less, and they will cost very much more. The God-King can strike there and even if they haven’t cut the steam road, it will be the better part of six moons before the army can reach Zarthan in any numbers. Six moons will be a very long time.

“Of course, as desperate as King Freidal’s position is, Duke Tuck’s is far worse. His borders to the south are vast stretches of trackless desert. He does not possess a single harbor worthy of the name. Raiding parties from the sea, raiding parties sneaking across the desert–those will be serious concerns for him. If the God-King can gather sufficient soldiers, Duke Tuck will be swamped.”

“This is a very great responsibility,” Trilium said formally.

“It is. Count Echanistra assured King Freidal that Lady Noia could do it. King Freidal met her and told Count Errock and myself that she could. Queen Elspeth was even more positive in her praise. Brigadier Markos tells me that Lady Noia was the first to see the danger, there at the waterhole and alerted her captain. That the successful defense would have been impossible without the early warning.

“Count Errock was impressed by Lady Noia, my lady wife is impressed and I, as the others, am confident she can do this.”

Noia tried to look as if the High King and all those others praised her every day. She doubted if she succeeded very well.

“Now, I want you, Sergeant Trilium and you, Tanda Sa, to return to your quarters and prepare for an early departure for Harphax City. I would have a few moments alone with Lady Noia.”

The two men stood and left.

The High King waved at the ball again, after they were alone. “Here, along the coast of what was once the God-King’s lands is the town of Zimapan. There my Grand Marshal, Hestophes, commands. It is one of the sea bases I’m establishing in the region.

“The ships I’ve sent him are basically row-powered fishing boats that have been strengthened. They have a single mortar to shoot with, and they have to be careful with that, or the ship catches fire and burns.

“That is an attempt to fool the God-King as to the sorts of ships he’ll eventually face. We have, however, already caught some intelligencers of the God-King in Harphax City. They weren’t smart as the God-King paid them in raw gold and the local gold merchants had been warned to report anyone trying to sell raw gold.

“There will be others, smarter, more careful men, who will follow them. Be sure of it.

“It passes belief that the one convoy attacked since the war was attacked by coincidence when you were with it. Your trip across the southern deserts, until the waterhole, wasn’t hurried. They would have had to hurry, but there was time to send a message and get ships up to where you were going to be.

“It would be foolish on our parts, mine and yours, Lady Noia, to assume you can appear in Harphax City and go unremarked. Their intelligencers will know and like as not they already have orders in your regard. If not, it will happen quickly.

“They may try to kill you, they may try to obstruct you. You will have to be very careful. The battle of the intelligencers is going to be nearly as important for the next few years as the battle of armies and ships. Be careful.”

He chuckled and she looked at him. “About now,” he told her, “if you were a young male officer I’d tell him what I was just saying was to keep his pecker in his pants. My lady wife assures me that women have the same urges as men. Please, I mean no offense, but have a care, Lady Noia.”

She laughed. “You obviously haven’t looked at me carefully, highness.”

“Oh, I have. I won’t lie to your face and tell you that you are a beautiful woman underneath your outer trappings. Lady Noia, what you are, though, is powerful. People can see it; they can sense it. Power, Lady Noia, will attract some like moths to a flame. It’s all they think about, it’s the only thing they value. If you listen to them, they will try to turn your head with flattery. Don’t listen to flattery.”

She felt brittle and angry. “High King Kalvan, I have no intention of being betrayed by my emotions or my urges. Anyone who tries to flatter me is going to look stupid.”

“Then I will say no more, Lady Noia. Think upon what I’ve said, all of it. There is a great deal to digest.”

“That is so, highness.”

II

Tanda hugged her son, kissed him on the nose, and then blew noisily on his belly, causing him to giggle and laugh, waving his hands in glee. Not as good as a horsy-ride, but pretty good.

The signal sergeant came in, diffident again. “Lady Tanda, another message from the countess.”

She took it and read it and looked at the man bleakly. “For the first time in my life, I understand the temptation to shoot messengers,” she told him. “But, not to worry, my weapons are over there on the desk,” she told him.

“We’ve sent the message on to the duke, Lady Tanda,” he added.

“See, for that, you get spared,” she said lightly. “Thank you, Sergeant, that will be all.”

He bobbed his head and hurried out. Lady Inisa came and lifted John away, swinging him up and onto her shoulders. “Bad news, my lady?” her companion asked.

“It would seem that our evaluation that King Xyl was going to need a year or so to get organized was optimistic in the extreme. Zacateca has gone over to him and has accepted many thousands of his soldiers without a fight. Lady Judy doesn’t want to speculate on the actual number, but the reported number is more than twenty thousand. She chose not to fight after all and has beat a hasty retreat.” She’d been about to say which direction, and then decided against it.

Lady Inisa was as loyal as she was, Tanda was reasonably sure, but there was just no reason to tell her what way Lady Judy had gone in her retreat. They were all going to have to develop much better habits than what they’d had before! It was clear that King Xyl was current with all of their troop movements. They had grown careless in the year and a half since the war.

She stood up. “I’ll not be back tonight. I’ll sleep with the troops, what little sleep I get. I need to make sure we’re ready to go at dawn.”

She went to the camp, where Brigadier Morphalic was working hard to get his division ready to move, along with Captain Almedy, who commanded the artillery and Captain-Logistos Chaulia, a woman who had once been the wife of a captain of infantry at Xipototec, but before the Hostigi had come.

Chaulia had been cast aside for a younger woman by her husband, and because her family was influential in Tenosh, her husband had moved to keep her mouth shut. She’d been in a cell, deep in the pyramid, waiting for the next feast day sacrifice when she’d been rescued by the people of Xipototec during the revolt.

She hadn’t marched south with the soldiers of Xipototec when they went with Tuck to take the battle to the God-King, but she’d certainly proved of signal service otherwise. She could read and write; she was one of the people who survived in the city who could read and write Zarthani, plus read and write her own language. When the Hostigi captain commanding the city had been killed in an attack, she’d served as the deputy to the Hostigi lieutenant who assumed command.

“Logistos Chaulia, will the wagons be loaded and ready on time?” Tanda asked.

“Yes, my lady! I believe, two palm widths before the sun rises. If it pleases you, I’d like my people to rest in place, until it is time to move out.”

Tanda looked at the brigadier who nodded. He was as round as he was tall, and he sported a bald head that he must surely wax, to get it to gleam so. He’d started out as a Mexicotál rifleman in the march south, taking command of the second division when it had been formed last summer.

“Captain Almedy?” the brigadier inquired. “Are your guns ready to go?”

The artillery officer was nearly as young as Tanda, and like so many artillery commanders, it seemed, abnormally brilliant. “Yes, sir! We keep everything but fireseed stored in wagons, in the artillery sheds. If the duke had waited another palm width, I could have sent more than two mortar companies south with him.”

“I do not mean to offend anyone here, but a half dozen of my Ruthani went with my husband, another few have already gone south to scout for us,” Tanda told them.

“I’ve heard their captain is not among them,” Morphalic said, a small smile on his face.

“He went south yesterday with a recruit. A daughter of the Lion of the Ruthani.”

“A woman,” Captain Almedy observed, with a hint of disparagement in his voice.

Tanda Havra pulled her knife from her belt and began to trim her fingernails with the razor-sharp blade. The captain cleared his throat and lost further desire to speak on the matter.

Then Tanda walked outside and stared up at the stars, cursing that the light had spoiled her night vision. Those stars were, she’d been told by Tuck, the one constant, pretty much, between worlds. He’d told her that the moon wasn’t quite where he’d expected it, but stars were.

She huffed a sigh.

*** ** ***

Two moon quarters later she and the brigadier rode with a strong escort the last few miles to join up with Tuck. He welcomed them into the same tent that he’d brought with him from his homeland, and they settled into seats. The tent was already uncomfortably warm, but it was away from everything else.

“Lord Tuck, the rest of my division will be up before nightfall,” Brigadier Morphalic reported. “We are ready for any mission you assign us!”

Her husband had contented himself with a quick hug, a shorter kiss and one word when Tanda had greeted him: “Shortly.” With a promise like that, even if it was uncomfortably warm, she could easily wait!

“Brigadier, I’m sorry to say it, but I’ve already sent a runner north to tell them to halt in place and prepare a hasty defense. That will be the spot where we’ve fought so many battles already. As soon as it’s dark, we’ll strike camp here and join them by midnight. Tomorrow, it’s back to Xipototec, taking due care.”

“Due care?” Tanda asked softly.

“Yes. Our scouts reached the walls of Huspai four days ago and got in touch with our people inside the city. Huspai has received a hundred thousand reinforcements in the last two moon quarters, roughly a division a day, five days a moon quarter. Those men have been set to making bricks down by the river.

“Already they have the start on new barracks. They are, I’m told, digging trenches for defensive positions, instead of trying to build defensive walls. There is no certain word how many soldiers the city will be reinforced with in total, but the city is buzzing with rumors that it will be a quarter million.”

“Right now, Brigadier Larric is getting his division ready to move. You, Brigadier Morphalic, will return to your division as soon as we’re done here. Brigadier Larric will be the column commander on the return to Xipototec.”

“Yes, Lord Duke! I am yours to command!”

“Well, the two of you get together in the time you have, and get the marching order straight. I am detaching a regiment to escort Lady Tanda and myself on our own mission.”

“What mission, sire?”

Tuck sighed. “Brigadier, it is time we all learned a new way of thinking. It’s called ‘need to know.’ Neither you nor Larric will know where we go until later. Even the regimental commander will be told only after we’re in motion.”

“We Mexicotál no longer hold your trust?” the general asked stiffly.

“Nothing like that. But for the last year and a half, day-by-day, we’ve gotten sloppier and sloppier about operational security, myself included. Do you know why those men are digging trenches at Huspai?”

The question seemed to surprise Morphalic. “No, Lord Tuck.”

“Because that’s how the High King wanted us to defend our cities. It’s what you and your divisions are going to start doing when you get back to Xipototec.

“Trenches aren’t perfect, but they are pretty damned good! They are deep enough, you understand, for a man to stand at the bottom of the trench, so bullets or artillery, except mortars, can’t touch them. They can reload safely, then step up on a small platform that puts their head over the top of the trench, allowing them to shoot, and then sink back down in cover to reload.

“As a force multiplier, it is about ten to one, at least when it comes to large numbers of men.

“And yes, some of the Mexicotál have turned their coats. Brigadier, if I thought for a heartbeat you were King Xyl’s man, I’d give you to Tanda Havra to question. Or any man that I thought was disloyal. Yet, here she sits, listening to us. It’s clear from what happened to Lady Judy, from what happened at Zacateca, at Huspai, and probably everywhere else, King Xyl isn’t waiting to attack us.

“With forty thousand men, we can probably hold this year, even against a half million. But there will be more next year, and more the year after that. It’s going to be touch and go, do you understand?”

“Yes, Lord! I’m sorry...”

“As I am. But it’s now a fact of life. Larric was even less pleased than you were. But this is important! We can’t afford to give King Xyl any more unforced errors like we’ve given him lately.

“I had thought we’d dig trenches this winter, after the winter planting. Now, it’s dig or die.”

The other nodded, his eyes bright. “Lord Tuck, there may be some disloyal! But not my men! I swear it!”

Tuck reached out and gripped the man’s arm. “I would have wagered we had no traitors in the scouts, that any such would have been in the regular army. For the time being, we’re going to have to be careful. A sorcerer hunt would be very bad, right?”

“It would ruin our morale, sir!”

“Yes. So, we keep our mouths shut about our plans, keeping them as close as we can. And when we find that King Xyl knows what they are, why we’ll have a lot fewer places to look. And we will have to look.”

“Yes, sir!”

“So, now for the bad news.”

The brigadier’s eyes bulged. That hadn’t been the bad news?

“Some sixty thousand of King Xyl’s troops are advancing towards Tecpan, in three columns of about twenty thousand each. I personally think they are just pulling our leg, satisfying themselves with forcing Judy and Gamelin to retreat.

“No, the really bad news came this morning from the Grand Marshal at Zimapan. Commencing at first light yesterday morning, a quarter million soldiers of King Xyl began landing north of the city. It would appear that the Grand Marshal is going to be besieged.”

III

Captain Gryllos was sleeping badly. He couldn’t tell if he was being praised or damned and couldn’t tell if it was the brigadier or the Zarthani Captain Landsruhl doing the talking. It was most confusing. Plus, the night was scalding hot and sleep was in short snatches.

There was a rap at his door and someone pushed it open. He sat up, which was a good thing because the signal sergeant was carrying a lantern and a message. “Urgent message, Captain, from the brigadier.”

He swung his feet off the canvas bed and put them on the ground, reaching for the message. It was terse, but lengthy, which wasn’t something the signalmen liked to do at night. He looked up at the sergeant. “Please, call Lieutenant Smyla and Sergeant Leem. I want to see them in a finger width in the mess.”

The sergeant looked concerned, but went to do as bid. Gryllos struck a light and looked around the little room that he’d called his own for almost a year. “Once more,” he mused to himself, “I’ll see you once more, and then, I suspect, I’ll never see you again.”

He stood up and pulled on a pair of his stoutest trousers, his heaviest boots and his oldest tunic. He carried the lantern downstairs and found the mess still empty. He sighed again. Some officers, he knew, would have insisted that he and Lieutenant Smyla eat separately from their men, but when there are just two of you, why bother?

Smyla beat Leem by a few heartbeats, but that was a hollow victory, for Leem was not only dressed, he was ready to travel.

“Lieutenant Smyla, good news and bad news. The good news is, I’m detached from this post and you’re appointed to command it.”

“Sir!” the older man looked pleased.

“Don’t get too excited,” Gryllos cautioned. “The Sixth Mounted has been ordered south to Tecpan. You’ll need to get the post ready to turn over to some of Count Errock’s Western Mounted...they’re calling the entire division up.”

Smyla frowned. “Ah, Captain, the enlistment terms of some of the men...”

That mystery had been resolved. Some of the soldiers who’d served in the last war, not normally required to serve again, had been offered a special deal by the High King. If they agreed to serve for two more years, they would only be stationed in Hostigos or at Outpost, and at the end of the two years, if war didn’t break out, their land grant from the High King was doubled. If war did break out, they had to serve as any other soldier–but their land grants were quadrupled.

“Those men and the horse herders aren’t affected. Just those of us in the Sixth. Probably it will be a moon or so before you are relieved...and then, well, you’ll be headed for Tecpan as fast as the horses will carry you.”

Smyla nodded. “And you, Gryllos?”

“Brigadier Markos says to leave ‘at once’ for Tecpan. Since the message came in the middle of the night, I assume he means before the sun comes up. Leem is supposed to escort me to a meeting with some Ruthani scouts, also heading south.”

“Where Pinyon will be, and where we will go south. A new man will be here in a few days tomorrow, Lieutenant,” Leem said smoothly. “He’s a little young, but when he ten was with Tanda Havra and Lady Tazi after Mogdai was attacked.”

“He’s just twelve?” Smyla raised an eyebrow.

Leem nodded. “You will find, Lieutenant, that none of the Ruthani are as attentive to their duty as those of Mogdai.”

Lieutenant Smyla nodded emphatically. In a way, Leem was saying the same thing as the High King had, with the new enlistments: every man, woman, or those old enough to deal with the job were needed.

“I’ll be ready in a finger width, Leem,” Gryllos told his friend. “Smyla, have someone get four horses ready to go at once. Rouse the cook and see that Leem and I have trail rations and water ready before we leave.”

“Sir!” Lieutenant Smyla started to stand up.

“One last thing, Smyla...there’s a reason for this.”

“I imagined so, Gryllos.”

“Zacateca fell yesterday morning. A bunch of King Xyl’s soldiers tried to ambush Lady Judy, but she managed to get away. With Zacateca in Xyl’s hands, the situation in Mexico just got really bad. Be frank with the men, but not so frank that you tell them when they’re going south. It’s all here,” Gryllos said, handing him the message.

The two men exchanged a solemn salute, then Gryllos ran back upstairs and tossed everything of his into his pack, gathered up his two new shotguns and their shells, and his favorite rifle and went back downstairs.

It would have been too much to hope that they’d be riding south within two finger widths, but three wasn’t bad. There wasn’t enough light to go very fast; there was a thin overcast, but it was sufficient to cut down on their ability to move quickly.

“What do you know?” Gryllos asked Leem, as the first hint of color touched the sky to the northeast.

“There is no way to be sure which ones, certainly their officer, but the thirty-two Mexicotál scouts the countess had with her betrayed her to King Xyl. They led her into a trap.”

Gryllos winced. Battlefield treason wasn’t unknown; if nothing else for the simple fact it normally had an outsize impact on the battlefield.

“Lady Judy?”

“She realized it was a trap and instead of waiting for her ambushers to attack, she withdrew. We’ll know later today if she succeeded in breaking contact.”

Gryllos was silent for a few moments, remembering his earlier thoughts about the great leaders and their vulnerability to defeat.

There was enough light to see a grin on Leem’s face. “They’re not going to let me stay with you, you know,” the Ruthani told Gryllos.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when we meet Pinyon, about two hundred Ruthani scouts are going to head south for Tecpan, another two hundred for Xipototec. There is no way you can keep up with us, my friend. Not on foot, not on a horse.”

“Go on without me!”

Leem chuckled. “Do you know the way to Xipototec? And then on to Tecpan?”

“No,” Gryllos said with real regret. “But I’m not a total fool. I’ll ask directions.”

“Do not feel ashamed, my friend. Few men can run as the Lost Ruthani can run! No horse anywhere can keep up with us! And if I don’t go as fast as my brothers...it’s not as if the war will be over before we get there.”

IV

Freidal bent over the long council table, now filled with drawings and plans and lists and a myriad other bits and pieces of the paraphernalia used for planning vast endeavors. It was enough, he thought, to make an honest soldier’s head spin. And the headaches it gave to a king!

He looked over at his queen, who brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes. “Go over the manpower requirements for this summer, El.”

She nodded and turned to what she called a “master sheet.”

“Timber for ships. Two hundred men to be added to the Royal Ropewalk in Baytown in the fall, after the harvest. We have planted two thousand acres in hemp, and in each of the next two years the acreage will double again. For the time being those men will be used to add on to the ropewalk, bringing it to three hundred yards long instead of the current fifty yards.

“A thousand men have been set to logging east of River City and two hundred men and six hundred horses set to hauling those logs to the river and making rafts of the logs. For the time being, those timber rafts will travel no further than Baytown, where half of it will be sawn up for ship planks, and half sawn into steam puller ties.”

She looked up at him and grinned. “Some of those ties will go into making trestle bridges over streams and small rivers.”

Freidal drew himself up. “And the steam puller line?”

“We have talked with Count South March, Count Quillan and a dozen others. For the time being, the line will start across the bay, go through a pass to the other side of the coast range, and then on east, towards River City. There will be a branch north to the coal mines, then, south of River City the line will join another running north and south. It will be a hundred and twenty miles by puller to River City, from the Baytown start, roughly sixty miles to the junction, then two hundred miles further south and east to the edge of the Misty Mountains. There is only one range of mountains to cross, and they aren’t very wide and they aren’t very tall. They are, regrettably, granite.

“The puller line will turn east at the mountains. Those mountains are going to be a serious obstacle, and it’s going to take a very careful set of maps to find the best way through. Two hundred men will spend the next year working on that map alone.

“Once across the mountains is the desert. Steam pullers are no different than people or horses: they need water. Another couple of hundred men are going to be scouting the path. There are ways through the desert that don’t entail going over the mountains. The puller rails will go about a hundred miles east of the mountains, before turning south. A hundred miles to the south is Iron Mountain, and then another hundred miles east to the Mud River.

“There is no way to build that line like it should be built, at least according to the High King,” Elspeth explained. “His way would entail building from Baytown, that junction, River City, both directions out of the Misty Mountains, and both directions from Iron Mountain.”

“That’s why we’re putting in the steel works at the rail junction, right?” Freidal asked.

“Yes, it’s close to water, not distant from coal and a long, long wagon trip from Iron Mountain. We’ll be able to build sawmills there, too. We will be able to do work on the two mountain ranges we have to cross. The one just east of Baytown isn’t bad, but the other one will take a year or so of work. Maybe a year and a half.

“The High King says that once the first rail-making mill is in place, we can expect to spend a half year laying two miles of rail a moon. That’s learning how to do it, you understand, both at the mill and laying the track. He’s going to send us a couple of track crews to help train our people, so maybe it will be a little quicker. In his first year, the High King says they laid sixty miles of track. That will be half the distance from the junction to River City and half the distance to Baytown.”

“Surely the men get better?” Freidal observed.

“Yes, but then supplies and transportation becomes a bottle neck. A track laying team in flat terrain, without having to build a lot of bridges, can do a mile or two a day. Mountains, streams, lots of curves...well, those add significant amounts of time. The High King spent five years building the line from Hostigos to Xiphlon, and even so there are two ferries. And it took almost five years.

“Three years, if we’re lucky and work hard and we might just possibly link the coal mines, the smelters and the iron mines.”

“If King Xyl gives us three or four years. And if I can find a way to afford all of this.”

“Freidal, we will have a hard time at first. But as soon as the steam pullers are running in the Central Valley, you’ll be able to cut the time it takes to move the crop by nine tenths, and charge a tenth of what the teamsters do now, and make a huge fortune. You will have a royal monopoly on steel, coal, and ironwork of all kinds and above all, cartage on the steam puller line. That place where the line turns east at the Misty Mountains...there’s oil there. That’s worth its weight in gold, too.

“Tuck has an interest in mining. Well, actually, he liked to look at our old mining towns, most of them deserted now. Or whatever.” She shook her head, exasperated at talking about something unguardedly, something that she had to be very careful with.

“Anyway, he knows where a lot of those towns are, and where those towns are, is where the stuff worth digging out of the ground can be found.

“One thing you’re probably going to want to do is sell or give away some of this stuff, once it’s making good money. Concentrating that much money in one person is asking for trouble. Not to mention the counts and barons are going to be screaming that you are making too much money.

“Tuck has some ideas about that and I have some. We can deal with it, when the time comes.”

“Well, that’s good. That we’ll able to deal with something.”

She smiled at Freidal. “I’ve gone over what we have in the treasury, and it’s enough to get this going. It’s enough to keep things going as well. That may be an angle we can play: getting others to invest money in these enterprises. Give them an early shot at the money that they’ll make in the long run.”

He laughed. “Two years ago, I was worried about not falling off my horse again, or avoiding Tuck shooting me in the head once more. Now, I’m listening to my wife planning a project that is larger than all of the other mines and mills of Zarthan combined...and you’re worried about making too much money and how we can give it away. I tell you true, El, the world is a strange, strange place!”


	12. What It Means To Be a Lady

I

It was a grueling two and a half day ride for Gryllos to where he was supposed to rendezvous with the Ruthani. They reached the spot in late morning. Leem simply rode up to a single man, standing alone in the desert, slid off his horse and then saluted.

Gryllos wished he could be as elegant getting down from his horse, but he would never have been able to do it on his best day. Gryllos saluted the old man, older than any he’d ever seen before. “Sir, Captain Gryllos, Sixth Mounted Rifles.”

“I am Pinyon, Captain. Please, if you would, let me speak to my brother Leem.” He waved a short distance away, where Gryllos could see a boy of about fourteen, holding a water skin. “If you’re thirsty, there is some water.”

Gryllos knew he was being dismissed and had no problem with it. As Leem had shown no evidence of upset when Brigadier Markos had talked privately to Gryllos.

Gryllos went to the boy, who held out the water skin. Knowing he’d look foolish if he took any significant quantity, and besides, he wasn’t that thirsty, so he took only a mouthful, swished it around in his mouth, before swallowing.

He signed his thanks and the boy laughed. “I speak good, no?”

“Pretty good,” Gryllos agreed.

“You teach me better, eh?”

Gryllos eyed the boy. “I’m an officer of the High King, not a school teacher.”

“And we will be half moon on our way to Xipototec. Surely you will talk to me some.”

“Surely I thought I was going with Leem,” Gryllos told the boy.

The boy spat on the ground. “Look around you, soldier! Tell me who the Ruthani can spare more? Leem, son of the Lion or Jumper of the rabbits?”

Gryllos looked around. For the first time since he’d come off his horse he remembered there were supposed to be four hundred Ruthani assembling here to go south. All he saw was Pinyon, Leem and this boy.

Gryllos looked harder, remembering Corporal Noius at the Wagon Box fight, when he spotted a rifle sticking up from a bush. As hard as Gryllos looked, he could see no rifle barrels, no sign that anyone was within miles.

The boy grinned and tapped his ear. Gryllos frowned, then remembered the first part of the corporal’s discovery: the night had gone quiet. He listened and listened, but there was nothing. He was about to dismiss it when he realized that he was supposed to hear the usual sounds of the desert: cicadas, mostly, at this time of year, occasionally grasshoppers, crickets and the cactus wrens that flitted from one cactus to another.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Gryllos realized he was probably in the middle of the entire four hundred of the Ruthani and he couldn’t see any of them. He looked around again, trying to be more careful, but he couldn’t see anything out of place. There was just quiet silence in the desert, with the exception of the low murmur of Leem and Pinyon talking.

The boy spat on the ground. “You don’t see because you don’t focus. You look at a place, decide no one could possibly be there and move on, without ever having looked.”

A ghost hand tapped him on the left shoulder, and only by the most superhuman effort, Gryllos remembered to turn the other way. The person who tapped his shoulder was a young woman of about twenty, who belched, took a few steps into the desert and then vanished as if she’d been a dream.

Leem and Pinyon walked towards them and Gryllos faced them.

“My cousin Leem tells me that you will not be mortally offended if the boy escorts you to Xipototec?” the old man said.

“No, sir. I hadn’t realized that I would slow your people down. By all means, sir, send them at once. I don’t even need the boy.”

“Jumper has fostered with me since he was small. He has made the trip to Xipototec three times, once during the war. There he stood as close as he is to you to Lady Judy and she never knew he was there,” Pinyon said,

“Well, it isn’t my intention to slow you on your journey south. Boy or not, I’ll find my way to Xipototec.”

Pinyon nodded curtly, whistled, and turned and sprinted south. Leem went southeast. In moments each man was the head of a file of men several hundred long; men that just seem to spring from the ground.

Gryllos looked at the boy. “Let me guess, you didn’t bring a horse?”

The boy winked at him impudently. “I wasn’t hungry enough to want to pack that much food. Come, let’s go! I will reach the gates of Xipototec. I will keep the pace down so your beasts won’t die until you reach the gates of Xipototec.”

Jumper waved south. “If you were to ride hard, you could reach the northern end of those mountains before me. If you continued to press, your first horse would die before it was halfway along the mountains, and a day or two later, you too would die, a mile or two past where the second horse died, no matter what I did to help. Please noble sir, follow me, and don’t try to go too fast.”

The boy started off in a direction different than the other two columns, a fast walk that matched the pace of the horse Gryllos was riding. “Why aren’t we following the group going to Xipototec?” Gryllos asked.

The boy flashed him a grin. “Like most of you light-skinned northerners, you drink too much. More important, your horses drink too much. We will cut the main road before night. There is water, good water, along it until we reach the southern edge of the lands of the Ruthani. Then a day without water, and after that it will be okay.”

“I really can find my way to Xipototec by myself,” Gryllos told him.

“My grandfather says that if I do as I’m told, this time I may stay and scout like my brothers among the Ruthani. Last time, he told me I was too young.”

Gryllos sighed. And the boy glanced at him. “Why?”

Gryllos scanned the huge empty horizon, unlike everything he’d known growing up. “When I was growing up, I too longed to be a soldier and go to war. I wanted to protect my people, you understand? I wanted my sisters, brothers and mother safe, as well as my friends. It was my wish that none of them share the dangers with those like you and me.”

He expected the boy to be offended, but he evidently wasn’t. They kept going until late, and then were up early the next morning. Jumper didn’t seem to feel the distance traveled, the heat, and the dust...he hardly seemed to drink at all. Most amazing of all, Jumper was the source of one question after another about life in Hostigos and in the army of the High King. Several times Gryllos had to wet his throat to be able to keep talking, but Jumper never slowed his pace or his questions or took a drink.

II

It was two days to Harphax City for Noia and the others. A day on horseback and then a day on a steam puller.

When Noia descended from her wagon she sniffed the air, smelling the sea breeze for the first time in moons. She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. It was late afternoon and she looked around the station where they’d climbed down from their steam puller wagon.

She mentally kicked herself. In Hostigos she’d seen the construction underway and had assumed it was simply because that was the High King’s capitol and that massive construction projects were the rule of the day. If she’d thought Hostigos was busy building, it was nothing compared to Harphax City. You could smell the cut pine lumber; you could hear the sound of saws working to cut timber, the continual thunder of hammers pounding nails. Everywhere you looked, something was being built.

And it wasn’t just palaces and public buildings...in fact, most of the construction looked to be the work of private individuals. Where had they gotten all the money and materials?

Even as she thought that, she could see men working to unload the last three wagons of the steam puller that had brought them here. Two of the wagons were filled with coal, the third with ingots of iron.

Nearby were other steam puller wagons being unloaded. There were at least a half dozen trains she could see with men working on them.

A young lieutenant appeared. “Lady Noia?”

“Yes,” she told him.

“My admiral has sent me to bring you to him. Please, if you would, I have a wagon not far.”

He helped carry her bags, which mildly scandalized Trilium, who thought it his duty.

There followed a long wagon ride, made lengthier by the sheer volume of traffic on the streets. “Is it always like this, Lieutenant?” she asked.

He grinned. “Yes, Lady Noia. On the rest days, sometimes horses can move at a trot, but not often, even then.”

She nodded.

They entered a building and the lieutenant showed something to a guard, then they were ushered along a passageway covered with boards, permitting no view of the outside. There were frequent branching corridors through which the lieutenant moved confidently.

Finally they entered a very large building, where the sound of hammers and saws resounded within its walls. Noia looked out at an open space the size of the main market square at North Port. There were three ships building there, in various phases of construction. One was clearly framing timbers, the second a skeleton and the third had hull planks that ran halfway up the skeleton timbers.

The timbers were curved. Noia had no idea how they did that, because while some of the fishing boats she knew had curved timbers it was because they were small and those timbers had spent years in salt water to soften them.

They went along a gallery with a good view of the construction, then into an office. The lieutenant bowed to Noia. “The admiral will see you shortly,” he told Noia.

“What is an admiral?” ask Trilium.

“Like a land general. Admiral Daimondes commands the High King’s Navy. His rank is the same as a Captain-General.”

The man who emerged from his office was short, rotund and nearly bald. He bowed to Noia, and regarded Sergeant Trilium and Tanda Sa.

Finally he turned to Noia. “My lady, what I have to say is not that secret, but unless your men wish to be sea officers, likely to be of little interest. I swear on my honor as an officer that here you are safe.”

“It’s a sad thing, Admiral, that you have to swear to something like that,” Tanda Sa told him. “Sergeant Trilium and I will never be friends, but we will never be far from Lady Noia either. Please, go a few feet and discuss your secrets. We won’t care.”

“There are nearly five hundred men within a mile of you devoted to nothing else but guarding this place,” the admiral told him.

Trilium laughed. “Admiral, sir! If you thought one less would suffice, there would be one fewer!”

Noia saw the admiral’s face suffuse red. So! Trilium had sent a bolt of truth home! A good thing to know! No wonder he’d been unpopular with his officers!

She allowed herself to be ushered into a small room.

“I am also Count Daimondes, I command the ships of the High King,” he told Noia.

She bowed just the least bit. He laughed.

“I know. But, Lady Noia, know this: Long ago I told the High King that I command here.

“You are how old, Lady Noia? Tell me of your sea experience.”

“I am seventeen summers. I’ve been to sea since I was eight when I snuck away from my father and stowed away on a fishing boat, heading out to sea. I’ve helmed sailing ships in all weather and all seas. I’ve hauled sails and nets.”

She felt pleased at that.

He smiled softly. “Lady, I was born on a fishing boat in the bay here. I was six years old before I first walked on land. My life has always been the sea.”

Noia bowed to him. “And my father made sure my life was mainly the land. I had to sneak time at sea, Admiral.”

He nodded. “Lady, the High King has agreed that, barring unusual circumstances, within my own yard, I command. The High King has asked me to show you the construction phases of one of his warships. That is no trouble.

“The High King has asked that you take part in the arming and munitioning of such a vessel. Again, I have no trouble with that. The High King has asked me to make you an officer of such a ship. Lady Noia, I had trouble with that request, because the High King does not expect you to be a junior officer. Lady, my lieutenants must know many things. You will be given ample opportunity to learn those things, although in a very short time. If you don’t you won’t be promoted as the High King wishes.

“In fact, the High King tells me that it is his desire that you should be the master of a ship. Lady, no one, man or woman, king, prince, duke, count or baron commands one of my ships without my certainty that they can do the task.”

Noia smiled slightly. “Sir, my father would laugh at me when I got back from time on a fishing boat. I smelled, he told me over and over, but moreover, I was too proud of how well the fisherman thought I did. I had no knowledge, Admiral, of what flattery was or meant.

“You are free to judge me, sir, solely on what you see. I ask no special consideration beyond that I be given a chance to learn what I might.”

The admiral nodded.

The next morning Noia, Trilium and Tanda Sa stood ready, along with a more than a hundred others.

Rowboats appeared in the distance, each powered by four men at the oars. People were quickly told off into the boats and more oars were passed out. There were ten men in Noia’s boat, and as soon as everyone was settled, they cast off.

One of the original four crewing their boat spoke, as they moved a few yards offshore. “I am Shalaxios, the bosun of this boat.” He looked at them. “Ya all look hearty, I’ll give you that. So, let me tell you that I’ve made a little bet in the name of all of us. The losers buy the wine, beer and beef for a party aboard, tomorrow night. The winner gets carried on the shoulders of their mates. Those of us here, aboard this boat, we’re going to be the winners! Don’t let me down!”

Trilium laughed. “And how far do we have to row, bosun?”

The bosun laughed louder. “Why, landsman, hardly anything. Twelve miles.”

The bosun growled at them. “I’ll spend a few moments teaching you how to row, and then, my friends, you’ll row your guts out. If you win, I won’t use them for garters!”

He described how to ship oars, so they were all pointing skyward. He described how to row, how to put the oars in the water. Already, around them, boats were rowing away. Noia smiled slightly to herself. It was clear that most of those boats were shaking down slowly.

Finally, they started rowing and Shalaxios gave them the stroke, words of praise or words of castigation, as needed. He was fair, seemed unimpressed by errors, and determined to teach them how to do it right.

They’d gone less than a mile, when Tanda Sa growled. “You, bosun! Some of us are stronger than others! There are too many on the right side stronger than those on the left! We keep bending our course!”

The bosun grinned. “Exactly right, junior bosun! You, switch with the man to your left front!” Shalaxios made another four trades, and when they started to pull again, Noia was impressed. The rowboat seemed to fly, where before it seemed to crawl.

Still, it was hard work and by mid-morning Noia wasn’t the only rower starting to flag. They were ahead of the next closest boat by several hundred yards, though.

Shalaxios spoke up. “Okay, has anyone noticed anything in the last few finger widths?”

“It’s easier to row,” Noia told him.

There were groans around her. “The tide has turned,” Noia went on. “We no longer fight it, the water is slack.”

“Aye, the water is turning slack. Now we have to be careful of a boat that has been hanging back, and not trying to exhaust themselves against the tide! But we are stout lads and a clever lass.”

There were laughs from the boat’s crew. “So, now we’re going to take it easy for a palm width. If someone passes us, they pass us. It will take us two more palm widths to make the ship. We’ll save ourselves for that last palm width.”

In fact, only one boat came close, and they were several hundred yards behind them, when Shalaxios started to call for a faster stroke. They were more than a mile in front of the next boat as they approached a ship at anchor.

Shalaxios spoke to them again. “We have the race won, do you understand? No one can catch us!”

There were cheers from some of them.

“But, there is something else, something I prize even more than winning. And that is pride! So I want you to put your backs to it, I want those oars to dig hard, frothing the water and I want us all gasping for breath when we reach the ship’s side!”

They did just that. Each time anyone flagged, Shalaxios would exhort them personally, and that person would dig in, and row ever harder. They finally reached the ship, the crew of their boat nearly spent.

Noia saw the bosun jump up from his seat, climb up the ladder that led up the side of the ship with alacrity. He’d pulled just as hard as the rest of them! Noia set her face, pulled her oar in and laid it in the bottom of the boat. With as much dignity as she could manage, she clambered up the ladder herself, right behind the bosun.

Tanda Sa was just behind her, and a puffing Trilium just behind him. When she reached the deck, she saw Shalaxios standing in front of a senior lieutenant. “Bosun Shalaxios, twelve seaman and a lieutenant, reporting, sir!”

“You may berth your crew in the starboard cable tier, Shalaxios! Have the officer see me, as soon as he can get up here.”

“Sir!” the bosun replied. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Noia. “Sir, the officer is on deck!”

Noia managed to walk the distance between them, eternally grateful that as large as these ships were, they were pretty small otherwise.

“Lieutenant Noia reporting, sir!” she told the officer.

The lieutenant looked her up and down, obvious surprise on his face. “A woman?” the officer said, concern in his voice.

Shalaxios laughed. “Lieutenant, she’s Lieutenant Countess Noia.”

The young man paled. “Your grace!” and he saluted her.

“What are we to do now?” Noia asked.

“I’ll detail a man to see you to your cabin. You understand that you have to share it with,” he paled again, “several junior officers?”

“No problem, Lieutenant.”

“Then, please, ma’am, rest. When all the boats are aboard, we’ll beat assembly and everyone will report on deck.” He pointed to one side. “Trainee officers over there, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant!”

Noia glanced at the main mast, not far away. Her eye traveled up that mighty piece of wood, taller than twenty men standing on each other’s shoulders. She closed her eyes and smiled. This was the finest day of her life!

III

Gamelin stood with Judy and Tuck, looking towards the south from a high point on the ridge.

“Well,” Gamelin said with a sigh, “they’re going away from us.”

“The rain has turned everything to gumbo,” Tuck said absently, his eyes never leaving the marching soldiers in the distance. “That and they barely outnumber us. They’ll be back, and the next time we see them it won’t be such favorable odds.”

Judy sighed. “And the Grand Marshal?”

“There are none who envy his position today, however much they might once have,” Tuck said gravely. “The last message was two days ago and we have no idea what it was, because it was in a code we don’t know.”

The three of them were silent again for a finger width.

“How do we credit what Huixla sent to us from Zacateca?”

“I think we have to treat it as truth, until we know otherwise,” Tuck said. “Xyl has freed up substantial numbers of troops from the Heartland, even as even more yet are being trained. A half million men to Huspai, to face Xipototec. A half million men sent to Zacateca to face Tecpan. Another quarter million are camped at the mouth of the Big River, blocking Hestophes’ communications north. Another million men are en route north to besiege Zimapan, to be partly supplied by sea, as are those on the Big River to be supplied entirely.”

“The High King thought they’d try their first big attack against Zarthan. Evidently not,” Judy added.

“The High King’s Navy,” Gamelin said hopefully. “Do you suppose they can raid the supply lines?”

Tuck shrugged. “I imagine he will try. I don’t know if he has enough ships yet; I’m certain he doesn’t have enough trained men to crew them.”

Tuck spat on the ground. “I’m a good soldier, but not this good. I have no idea how to defend against an enemy who can strike at any time at any of a dozen points with more men than we have in our entire army. The only tactic that makes any sense at all is ‘trading ground for time.’” His expression was bleak.

“Except here we are, on the ground that will have to be traded, with hundreds of thousands of lives that depend on our judgment only a few miles away. Zacateca was taken back because they didn’t resist. Tecpan...it might be possible for King Xyl to get the city as he got Zacateca. Xipototec will never surrender and, if they did, they’d all be killed. Every last man, woman, and child.”

Tuck laughed bitterly. “But at Tecpan...if Xyl sent an emissary to them and told them they’d live if they returned to the fold, we might be facing a very short and bitter war.”

“Don’t despair, Lord Tuck,” Gamelin said seriously. “They would never do that! Xyl would never permit the people of Tecpan to live.”

“Wouldn’t he? Xyl the magnanimous...it would appeal to him, I think. Moreover, it would facilitate surrenders later. Ten or fifteen years from now, who knows what would happen? But if he assured the people in Tecpan that he was being honest. I don’t know. I’d like to think they would say ‘no!’ loudly and all of that, but I just don’t know.”

“Do you really think our town will rise against us?” Judy asked, her eyes angry.

Tuck nodded. “We’re foreigners. Yes, we freed them. Yes, we gave them hope where there was none before. Xyl, though, offers sweet seduction. Rejoin your people! We’ve killed those who oppressed you! Throw off the foreigners who oppress you today!”

“We don’t oppress anyone,” Judy said hotly.

Tuck nodded. “The thing we have to recognize is that Xyl may actually mean it. Certainly, it’s clear he would have a lot of resistance on his hands if he tried to go back to the sacrifices. And he’d need new platoons of priests.”

“We do oppress people, Judy,” Gamelin told his wife, “because we can’t give all men, and aye, all women, their heart’s desires. It is why for hundreds of years the Trygath has been a joke among all true men. It’s been hundreds of years since anyone trusted a Trygathi’s words–just his deeds. And because not everyone can rule, there is forever fertile ground for discontent and revolt and the breaking of yet another trust.”

Judy turned to face Tuck. “Why isn’t Tanda Havra here?”

Tuck met her eyes with a stony glare. “She’s not stupid. She and my son are guests of Count Errock.”

Judy’s nostrils flared in anger. “I don’t think her father would be very proud of her today.”

Tuck spread his hands.

Judy turned brisk. “I can deal with most things, but not wholesale treason. If Gamelin and I move to Xipototec, Tecpan will be up for grabs.”

“There was no warning at Zacateca,” Tuck reminded her. “If you stay in the city, they would garner a lot of credit with their new boss if they hand you over along with the city. I don’t think the new king’s generosity will extend to us.”

Judy turned abruptly on her heel and started down the hill. Gamelin looked at Tuck, who shrugged. “Not a clue,” Tuck told him.

“Something unexpected,” Gamelin agreed.

Tuck saw where she was headed. “Gamelin, there have been times you haven’t trusted me. I suspect this will be one of those. Please, come with me.”

Gamelin looked at Judy, striding resolutely down the hill, headed for the center of the camp, where their troops were camped.

With sudden certainty, Gamelin knew what she was going to do, as Tuck had already realized.

“If any harm comes to her,” Gamelin said thinly, “I will make it my life’s work to seek out every man and woman in that camp who is alive tomorrow and kill them.”

“Gamelin, she’s right. This isn’t something we can take a chance with. We need to know. You understand that if the news is bad, it’s because our worst fears were too optimistic?”

“Yes. Xyl’s sugar words have already spread among them.” He watched the woman he loved so very, very much, move into the midst of her soldiers, walking alone and proud. It took a great deal of effort not to spew his lunch all over the desert.

IV

Judy fetched up at the camp and waved to Vosper. “Assemble the soldiers. While they are assembling, gather up all the Hostigi troops and Ruthani scouts and withdraw to Tuck’s camp.”

Vosper stared at her for a moment, then bowed and turned and started shouting orders.

Judy finished up at the wagon yard and climbed up on a wagon bed, putting one foot up easily on the sideboard.

Word spread quickly and, in a gratifyingly short time, the soldiers were gathered around her. This wasn’t the first time she’s spoken to them and Tuck had spoken to his soldiers many more times. The soldiers were intermixed; their only desire was to be as close as possible to hear their leader’s words.

“Men of Tecpan!” Judy shouted. “The enemy is withdrawing south. The rain has rather dampened their enthusiasm for a battle!”

There was a roar of approval from the soldiers.

“Tomorrow at first light, we will start our march back to Tecpan!”

There were more shouts, this time even more enthusiastic.

Judy waited this time, until the crowd was quieter than usual; again, the soldiers realized something important was coming.

“We are here, all of us, because of the desire to protect our homes and our families.

“Now, however, there is a new King in Tenosh. He’s not the God-King, he’s the King of the Olmecha. He’s taken back Zacateca, sparing those of the city who profess loyalty to him.

“Soldiers! Xyl will be coming to Tecpan! He will offer the same terms to you. No sacrifices, your own city government, and no foreign overlords.”

Men turned to their friends, to the men standing next to them and a buzz of words rose up. Judy was patient, waiting until the words started to wane.

“I bow to no one in my loyalty to Tecpan and its people. I am willing to sell my life dearly in its defense if that’s what the people of Tecpan want. You soldiers, you will have the march home to think on this, to make up your minds.

“I don’t mind dying for Tecpan and your freedom. I don’t want to die at the hands of people who spurn me.

“This I promise: those who wish to fight Tenosh and its kings will always be welcome at my side.

“If Tecpan doesn’t want to continue the fight, I will tell you now I think you won’t be free, but you may live.

“Those that wish, may join my husband and I, at the camp south of Tecpan. You may bring your families. If the people of Tecpan request it, by a vote of the Council of Tecpan, we will quit the base and move to Xipototec. I promise you, all who come will be made welcome in Xipototec.”

There were low murmurs of talk again and again Judy was patient. Finally, she held up her hands to still the last of it. “Now, please. My husband and I have dealt fairly with you, the Duke of Mexico has dealt fairly with you, and so has the High King. Deal fairly with us. I’m being honest with you, as all of you should know. Be honest with us.

“Freedom is,” she said with a grin, “among other things, the right to make your own choices, however short-sighted people like me might think you are.”

Two days later she stood at the Council table in Tecpan and said the same thing. “I don’t want to hear protestations of loyalty from you. Shortly, I will leave and you can debate among yourselves. Whatever you do, don’t spill blood over the decision. Once the blood starts to flow, it will turn swiftly into a torrent and every drop weakens Tecpan and strengthens King Xyl, no matter which side of the argument the person was on.

“Has King Xyl sent emissaries to talk to you?”

There were a lot of downcast eyes.

“He has a sugar tongue, there’s no doubt of that,” Judy told them. “He is offering honey, there’s no doubt of that, either. I assume he told you that we will face millions of soldiers and there’s no doubt about that, either.

“There is no doubt that the reason why we’re here today is the last time he sent soldiers north, most of them died here. The war has been over for a year and a half. King Xyl has had three or four moons to consolidate his kingdom. We’ve had a year and a half. The High King, better prepared than all of us, has had that year and a half. Look, all of you,” she said.

Without a word, she spun, drew her pistol as she turned and fired into one of the twelve by twelve wooden supports for the roof. She pulled the second trigger a heartbeat later and everyone in the room was coughing.

“If that had been fireseed, we’d have to adjourn to the courtyard,” Judy said briskly. “Please, someone count the bullets in that timber.”

The number of bullet holes came to twelve and all could see that the timber was badly damaged.

“The High King has new rifles that fire six times, as fast as a man can pull the trigger. Those rifles can be reloaded faster than a man can load one of the old rifles to fire one shot.

“We already have some of those rifles and more are coming. We will have to set up a factory to manufacture the rounds, but that won’t be hard, our friends the Lost Ruthani will send us all the brass we need. Our friends from Hostigos and the Zarthani will send us all the lead shot and smokeless fireseed we need. Within a moon, Outpost will have a factory finished that makes the small explosives that power those and mortars.

“There are more weapons coming, as well. By winter, we will have one of the new cannon, just as Outpost has one now. These cannon load like a rifle, but their shells explode like a mortar. They also fire those shells six miles accurately, and eight miles accurately enough to hit an army on the march. Oh, and they fire four times to a regular cannon’s once.

“One last thing before you talk amongst yourselves. Of all of the people of Tecpan, you here in this Council chamber know who truly rules Tecpan. There is not a command I give that doesn’t go through you. My husband makes an occasional suggestion, he has never ordered anyone but a soldier to do anything–except fetch bathwater.”

There were titters. “Perhaps King Xyl will leave you the same autonomy, but I would think not. I think I would be most reluctant to be the one to ask him where the limits of your power would lay.”

Ixkatec spoke up, the first of the council to do so. “Duke Tuck, do you have words for us?”

Judy tried not to be offended by the question.

The duke said, “I would remind you of the oaths you took in order to sit in this room. First, an oath to Hostigos, saying you would not act against Hostigos or its people. Then an oath to Mexico, saying you would not harm Mexico or its people. Then you took an oath to defend Tecpan. Then, a personal oath to the High King, to support his rule of Hostigos, an oath to me, an oath to Lady Judy and finally an oath to this council.

“Hostigos, Mexico, Tecpan–those should be your highest loyalties. To the High King, myself and Lady Judy as those placed over those people to govern them.

“I don’t know if the words of King Xyl extend to how he rules his lands. He has promised no more priests and many fewer nobles. None of the former survived the revolt, the few of the latter who did, have become military officers. King Xyl has appointed military governors to replace the old nobles. The taxes have stayed the same, but only a third of the grain and money goes to Tenosh now, another third to that the military governor is supposed to spend on his local soldiers, and the last third is, of course, his to do with as he wishes.

“Women have no place in the leadership of King Xyl.”

He looked over the room. “As you may have noticed, the sun did not stop in its tracks when Lady Judy took your oaths to her. The rivers still run to the sea, the sky is still blue, and sometimes, with enough water, the grass is green.”

There were smiles among those in the room. “Tecpan has bloomed like a flower in the desert. Zacateca never grew and now has wilted. Zimapan is a military citadel; a lot of people have left there, moving either here or to Chalapi, near the mouth of the Big River.

“Xipototec has done very well, but not as well as Tecpan. There are a lot of rich men in this room, and many, many more outside these doors. The richest men in the Kingdom of the Olmecha are all soldiers.

“Lady Judy and I both took oaths to defend Mexico in general and Tecpan in particular. I won’t hold a man in very high regard whose sole desire is to keep himself safe. I understand men whose desire is to keep their families safe. I can’t promise you safety if you hold to your oaths to Mexico and Tecpan, but remember this: we are going to fight, even if we’re alone.

“You’ve all heard the stories of Lady Judy at Tarr-Dombra. That’s what those oaths mean in fundamental, real terms of deeds and actions, no matter how hopeless it might seem. We will fight.

“If you join King Xyl, then we will have to fight you. I can’t promise you anything about life if you stay loyal, I can’t promise you that King Xyl will hold true to his oaths. But I can promise you, that if you side with King Xyl, that if the High King comes to Tecpan, if I come to Tecpan, if Lady Judy comes to Tecpan, your lives will be worthless.”

Tuck stood, and Judy followed him. When he started to turn away from the table, Kiliwia spoke up. “Lord Tuck, please. We are loyal, one and all.”

Judy spoke before Tuck could. “You should discuss this among yourselves.”

The Alcalde stood, his back straight, meeting her eyes. “We have, Lady Judy. All of us are agreed. At Zacateca, when they revolted, they scared the nobles and soldiers, and they fled. The priests fled two days before that, afraid of what might happen. Now, King Xyl’s soldiers have taken the city at almost no cost to themselves or Tenosh. That won’t be the case here.

“Lady Judy, there is not a man in this room who didn’t spill the blood of men loyal to the God-King when we rose against them. There is not a man here in this room, or in the city itself, who did not lend a hand to destroy the pyramid. Zacateca still has theirs, even if it is dusty with disuse.

“We’ve had nearly two years of rule now, by the High King, by Duke Tuck and by you. We’re not blind and we are not stupid. There is no way that King Xyl will allow us to continue as we have been, no matter how sugary his promises. We don’t need to talk further, we know our own minds.”

Judy bowed to him. “Then, in that case, we will speak no further of this.”

She saw Kiliwia hesitate and she smiled to herself. He was waiting for the obvious question.

“It is clear, logistos Mam, that we will have to accelerate our stockpiling of food and other supplies. We need to send a great huge dollop of gold north to the Lost Ruthani’s new mining town of Copper Top.”

Tuck nodded. “Lady Tanda has been working with the elders of the Lost Ruthani. They will hold the gold in our name, and send it where we wish.”

“They can be trusted?” Kiliwia seemed astonished at the thought.

“The Mexicotál value gold, the Hostigi do as well, the Zarthani do, but not the Ruthani. It’s too soft, they say. They admire strength, not weakness. They will, however, take a very small part for their expenses in storing it, guarding it and shipping it for us.”

Judy smiled at that. Tanda Havra, banker! Who would have thought! Except Tuck assured her that Tanda had just given the idea to Pinyon, and it was the elders of the Lost Ruthani who were organizing the bank. Maybe that was the biggest surprise of all.

V

Puma watched the woman talk to people. Lady Judy was no older than Puma, yet for all that Puma thought she was an adult in all things, it was clear that Lady Judy far outranked her. In all ways, really. As a woman, Lady Judy was happily married to a man who was strong, handsome and powerful in his own right. Puma had fought the great lions of the mountains, but Lady Judy had fought men. When you thought about it, there was no comparison.

And there was this part of Lady Judy. There was no doubt she was comfortable speaking to important people and telling them what to do. She spoke her mind, even if the things she said were uncomfortable for her to say and for her listeners to hear. Hah! Puma could talk to the elders of her village without too much nervousness. She had met Pinyon once, but that was a half-lie. She’d been one of a throng of people from the village who’d greeted the elder of the Lost Ruthani. He’d looked right at her, at her fang necklace and had smiled and nodded in recognition.

He hadn’t stopped to chat, though. Puma was pretty sure that Lady Judy had talked to Pinyon more than once, and it had been Pinyon who’d come to talk to her. Rumor had it that hundreds of the Lost Ruthani were even now traveling south to join Lady Judy, Lord Tuck and the fight that was building here.

And what was she doing? She was standing like a little girl, watching in silent admiration as her father skillfully dressed a deer or cow after killing it.

Lady Judy turned to her. “Puma, there’s someone I’d like you to talk to, if you have a few moments.”

“Of course, Countess Judy,” Puma said, trying to be as formal as the others had been.

Lady Judy walked from where she’d been holding forth in a council room of her palace in Tecpan, down several long halls, then up a flight of steps to a small suite of offices. A girl their own age was sitting at a desk, reading.

“Lady Lydia, this is Puma, Lion’s daughter.”

“One of them,” Puma interrupted. “There are eighteen of us.”

Lady Lydia was as dark-haired and dark-skinned as Lady Judy, but much shorter. She stood and held out her hand for Puma, who took it.

“We were talking the other day about training someone to help out Tanda,” Lady Judy told the other girl. “Puma can read and write and knows some numbers.”

The girl behind the desk looked Puma up and down and grinned. “The one thing I hope you haven’t done is go around telling everyone who she is.”

“No. She has a necklace like her father’s, and I asked her to take it off. You and I will know, Shuria, the Ruthani scout who brought her, Gamelin and Tuck. Tanda, of course.”

The girl nodded, and then turned to Puma. “Do you know what we are talking about?”

“You want me to help my no-blood sister in some way.”

“No-blood?” Lady Lydia asked and Puma nodded.

“I have one no-blood sister, one full-blood sister and sixteen half-blood sisters,” Puma said proudly.

Lady Judy spoke up. “I’ll let the two of you talk. It’s up to you, Lydia.”

“Sure, Judy. Dinner at the usual time?”

“Yes. You, me, Gamelin, Vosper and perhaps Puma.”

The other girl nodded and Lady Judy patted Puma’s shoulder. “Take care, girl.”

Lady Lydia waved Puma to a chair.

“Tell me, Puma, about how women are treated in the lands of the Lost Ruthani?”

Puma frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Can you own property?”

“Property?”

“Land?”

“Village elders tell a new family which piece of land they will get to work, but it doesn’t belong to those who work it. If they don’t take care of it, I suppose the village could take it back, but that almost never happens.”

“It was that way, to some degree, here, when we kicked the God-King out,” Lydia told her. “Xipototec kept the land allotments the same, but the town still controls who gets it. Here in Tecpan, Judy convinced the Council to grant those who worked the land title to it. There were quite a few boundary changes, but they were all increases.

“Each farmer is taxed a fifth of their crops, plus for twenty years, each farm has to pay a gold Kalvan to the city as payment for the land. However, the people may trade, give away, or sell, their lands. Some parents have given their land to a favorite son; a few have sold their plots. Most of course, have kept the land.”

Puma sat still, trying hard to understand. Trading land? For gold? Giving it away? None of that made much sense to her.

“Further, because of the laws of the High King, women may own land and other property in their own right. The Council of Tecpan tried to modify that, but Judy told them they couldn’t pass laws that conflicted with the High King’s basic laws.”

Lady Lydia laughed, which surprised Puma. “Of course, it’s Judy, so gosh! She is so weird these days! She told the Council that if they wanted to do it differently, they could have a council vote on a petition to the High King, to ask permission to change their laws. She told them that she would cast only a regular vote...she has a veto, too, but she’s careful about using that. So far, she hasn’t had to. The Council might be all men, but none of them had the balls for that!”

Puma laughed and slapped her thigh. “Good!”

“Of course, the way of things in the lands of the former God-King was that women had babies and worked and were subject to sacrifice. Men didn’t have much more power, but at least they had a little more.

“The men of Tecpan, particularly in the Council, don’t feel it’s proper for women to be running things. One of the things I do is help even the balance for women.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I work to empower women. That comes in two fashions. First, I speak to them and tell them that they are every bit as equal under the High King’s laws as men are. As nobles are, in fact. The other part of that is I help women get together and assert themselves, politically and economically.”

“I know the words, but they don’t mean anything to me,” Puma admitted. “Power and money, my father told me once, were things the Hostigi and Zarthani coveted.”

“Power and money,” Lydia agreed. “Exactly right. Women may vote in the lands of the High King. In six moons, there will be new elections for the Council of Tecpan. Two moons from now, candidates will go among the people of Tecpan and speak, they will be able to talk to other people. Candidates for the Council may form groups, called ‘parties’ who can work together, be it gathering money, or holding speeches–and parties–to gather support. After another two moons, the parties will propose list of candidates for the various seats on the Council, plus those who are independent will also be recognized for the seat they wish to run for.

“Two moons later, the election.” Lydia grinned. “The men of the Council have made no preparations. The women of Tecpan have. Quietly, without making a fuss. I can’t say that they all agree on everything, but there will be just two main women’s parties, and both will have full slates of candidates for the Council. I help with advice only. I am not allowed to spend money on any of the groups. Judy would have a cow.”

“Have a cow?” Puma was confused.

“It’s a term from home, badly translated. Speaking of translation, we’re speaking Zarthani. Do you understand me when I say this?” The last sentence was in Mexicotál.

“Yes, Lady Lydia, and I speak it after a fashion as well. My full-blood brother told me that I should learn it.” Puma knew enough to reply in Mexicotál, even if she didn’t speak it very well.

“Well, you’ll get better with practice. You will get lots of practice if you help me! And Puma, my name is Lydia. When we’re in a formal situation, you can tag on the ‘Lady’ thing, but it makes me look around for my mother. And even my mother wasn’t a lady.”

“It is a term of respect for your position,” Puma said, more confused than ever.

“Puma, where we are from, Judy, Becky and I were in the lowest tier of our schools. Granted, we would have gone to the second tier in a few more months, but the fact was, we were just common, ordinary people until we came here. Here...here is different.

“Puma, I read a lot. One of my favorite authors was a man named Rudyard Kipling. I read everything of his that I could get my hands on. At home, a hundred years ago, two great powers struggled to control a vast area, inhabited by people somewhat like the Mexicotál. One of the powers had conquered the territory; the second power struggled to tear it away from them.

“This fellow Kipling called that struggle ‘The Great Game.’ It was a struggle of politics and economics, intelligencers and soldiers, and lasted for a hundred years.”

“And did your people win?”

Lydia laughed. “My people were far, far away, and concerned about other things entirely. One of the two powers, the original conqueror, had many colonies, many conquests. My people were originally one of their colonies, but we threw off their rule fifty years before the Great Game started. They won the Game, because as bad as they were, the nation that strove against them was worse.

“Which brings me to economics. Money, as you put it. Lady Judy takes a fifth of what the people of Tecpan produce. The government we lived under, at home, took more than that. The God-King took more than that. The High King is an amazing man. Not the least of the reasons why, is that he doesn’t spend his money on palaces, jewels and ostentatious living.

“Judy sends a third of what she collects to Tuck, but actually gets more than that back from Tuck to support the army. She sends a third to the Grand Marshal in Zimapan, although I suspect that for the time being, that’s going to change. She keeps a third, of which she gives two thirds to the Council of Tecpan to spend.”

She smiled politely at Puma. “Tell me, Puma, what percentage of the income of Tecpan does the Council get to spend?”

“Two thirds of one third of one fifth,” Puma replied promptly. “Not much.”

“Be a little more specific,” Lydia asked.

Puma did it the hard way. In her head, she envisioned a hundred ears of corn. She reduced that to twenty, the tax. A third of that was six and a bit. Two thirds of that, would be...“Four and bit parts in a hundred.”

Lydia nodded. “Close enough for government work!

“Puma, that’s more money than the old governor got from the God-King–double, in fact. Absolute money, not as a percentage, but it’s absolute money that you can spend.

“One of my duties is to advise the women of Tecpan how to get together and combine what little money they have, in order to make more. It can be as simple as four women combining money they make grinding corn for two moons, to buy one of them a sow. Two moons later the next woman gets to buy a sow, two moons later the third, and finally the fourth. Choosing the order is done by lots, but the important thing is that it’s much easier to save your money for two moons than for eight.

“And those sows are pregnant when delivered, which means they deliver a lot of little piglets, who grow up. They can be sold for meat, or bred for more pigs. And the same thing holds true for chickens, goats and sheep.

“There were, at last count, about two hundred such groups in the city. Three or four new ones start each moon quarter. I give them advice, and...” she looked around. “Now and then I throw in a little money of my own, or some of Judy’s money.” She grinned at Puma. “It’s like gambling.”

“Gambling is foolish,” Puma said primly.

“Absolutely true, unless you’re the house. Here, we’re the house.”

“House?”

“Yeah, well, we will work on your vocabulary. Gambling is indeed for fools. I have put my money into seven projects; Judy has put hers in four. So far, all have won. The smartest one I ever did was get a piece of the whiskey business in Tecpan.”

“Whiskey?”

“It’s like corn beer...only a lot stronger,” Lydia told her. “Don’t touch the stuff! It will rot your brain! But, if you’re a farmer who spends his day in the fields, sometimes coming home at night and being able to wipe it all from your brain...let’s just say the whiskey business is going great guns. Judy and I both have experience with those who drink too much, and frankly, we’re working to keep that to a minimum, even though our partners aren’t always happy about that and don’t agree with us.

“Part of politics, part of business, is having an ear to the ground, knowing what is going on,” Lydia continued.

“For instance, there was no time for me to tell Judy before she had her meeting with the Council about them going over to King Xyl. Had there been time, I’d have told her to relax, it wasn’t going to happen. Not to mention, I know who the Council talked to, who King Xyl’s go-between is.

“When Tazi and Zokala were killed, the two most logical people to help Tanda in Xipototec to do the same things I’m doing here, died. Xipototec is suffering from not having someone like me. Twice I’ve made trips there, but you really need, sometimes, to hold hands day-to-day.

“Would you be interested in learning this, to help Tanda?”

Puma looked at her for a few heartbeats. “Lydia, I have a question. I know the women of my village. Some are wonderful; some are not. Some are far from wonderful. What would stop a woman who, having contributed for a pig, having gotten the pig, then refused to contribute to anyone else?”

Lydia grinned. “Two things. First off, Judy and I used our own money, first thing, to set up a newspaper. It’s not much, but it’s ours. We publish the names of those people in the investment groups who’ve made their contributions and those who don’t.

“Judy says the contributions have to be voluntary, that we can’t impose laws against such people. So, something Tanda told Judy once, about her father standing at the village fire and turning his back on her, resonated with us. We publish the names of those who don’t pay, and ask people to back-side them.

“You haven’t lived, until you’ve seen the humiliation of a woman walking down the street to the fountain, with every second or third woman turning their backs on her. It doesn’t take long before most of those women shunned find their contribution someplace.”

Puma sniffed. “In my village, my father was thought to be a braggart, a man who didn’t do his duty to his family even though he always did, and I’m not talking about making my mother regularly pregnant. Lion made sure that our crops were worked, that our debts were paid. Then, when my full-blood brother got big enough...” Puma smiled at the memory of how early that had been! “Well, even though we demanded respect, it wasn’t always forthcoming. My father saw to that, too.”

Puma met the other girl’s eyes. “So, yes. I’ve long been jealous of my no-blood sister. For no reason, I’ve since learned. She’s very much like my father and my brothers! I understand why Lion adopted her! I would do what I can to help her.”

“There will be almost no running around in the desert, no chance to chase down the great lions of the mountains.”

“I did that, Lydia, to try to win favor with my fellow villagers. It didn’t work. Then I did it to win favor with my brothers, but they are smarter and stronger than I will ever be. I would aspire to something greater than being known as the one who could run really fast, and who killed the great lions from ambush.”

Lydia reached out and shook Puma’s hand one more time.


	13. Treason by Dagger and Bullet

I

Later Noia listened as the master of the training ship spoke to Captain Amby’s junior officers, Captain Amby at his side. “Here you will learn your basic duties. We will sail down the bay, then out into the Great Eastern Ocean, and due east for a day, and then return. Listen to the bosuns–they will tell you what to do. Trained officers tell the bosuns, and I tell the officers what I want and the captain tells me what he wants. That’s how things work on ships.

“As trainee officers each of you will be detailed to understudy one of my regular officers. I don’t care if it turns out my officer was sleeping with your mother–you will never go against his orders. You will do what you are told, when you are told, or you will find that it’s not just common seaman who can be punished. I expect ignorance from them; I expect stupidity from them. I’ll tolerate a little ignorance from you, but absolutely no stupidity.

“Look to your right, gentlemen.”

All of the officers did as bid. “This is the ocean on a calm day in a huge harbor. There are few safer spots on the water. Do not trust your judgment, not unless you’re told that you can manage a sea-going watch. Always do as you are told, without argument, without demur, until that day. Am I clear?”

The last three words were louder, like a whiplash.

The officers all chorused their assent.

Noia saw something beyond the captain then. The boats they’d recently rowed here were flowing as a steady stream towards a pier a mile or so away, along a dark coast, where the trees came right down to the water. The pier was very dark, parallel with the shore. Nothing but what looked like a few trails were visible behind it except scrub trees, brush and what looked like swamp.

It turned out that things weren’t at all like they seemed. She wasn’t looking at the mainland, but at two islands, nearly joined together at the northern end, the larger about two miles long and the shorter about a mile and a half long. The gap between the two islands was just a few hundred yards.

There had been three ships under construction at Harphax City. There were a hundred more along the inner beaches of the two islands. There were thousands of men working there, men who lived about two miles away on the mainland. There was a small town there already and it grew steadily.

Barges and small ships flowed in a continual stream to the island, filled with the myriad things that ships required in their construction. Further, there were two steam sawmills that cut timbers for the ships as long as there was light enough to work by. The new officers spent an entire day sitting in wagons, being led around to the various activities, of this, what Noia was sure was the greatest shipyard in the world.

The next moon was a blur. Mornings were spent at the yard. First, pouring over the plans for the ship that was being built, then traipsing over the work, seeing how those plans were being turned into concrete reality.

One of the first things was that Noia was introduced to the new ship’s captain, a man named Amby. He was tall and sturdy, a little overweight, but very intense. He acknowledged that Noia was to be his junior-most lieutenant, and spent as much time in her training as he did the other officers.

Two of the ship’s officers had done this before, taken a new ship from the stocks to the docks and then to sea. Now they were seniors, training new officers. Noia applied herself as she never had before, trying to absorb any and everything that she might.

Then it was launch day and everyone stood, tense but proud, as their ship slid down and into the water. For a few moments the ship bobbed before settling level in the sea. Noia felt a pang. That had been a thing of beauty! Was watching the birth of a newborn something like this? She smiled slightly. Women would be pleased; this had taken four moons, from start to this point, instead of nearly ten. And she had only seen the last moon of the process.

Captain Amby stood in the center of his officers, as intent on the bobbing ship as the rest of them.

Finally he nodded. “It is good. Now, she is what the High King calls ‘en flute.’ That is a ship without stores, masts, spars and weapons. Those will take another moon, and will be done downstream. The water here is too shallow to support a fully outfitted warship.

“The rest of us, I’ll see you all tomorrow at this spot, along with the rest of the crew. Mornings we will spend here with our ship, studying what is being done. Some days, like the days where we step the masts and set the spars, those will be full days. However, most afternoons will see us working aboard one of the training vessels. There is one ready for us now. That ship is for us to exercise aboard until our own is ready for sea.”

If Noia thought the first moon was busy, the second was busier still. It seemed that there weren’t enough palm widths in a day to deal with everything that had to be done. She learned like she’d never learned before.

Trilium was learning the job of a ship’s petty officer. He was a natural at it. The sea was unforgiving of error, and that suited Trilium well. He learned quickly; in fact Noia believed he learned more about ship handling than she had.

Tanda Sa was in a unique situation. He was a trainee officer, but he had no experience with ships or the sea before, so he was initially placed with the very youngest junior officers-in-training. It was clear that having an adult who towered two feet above the next tallest of his classmates wasn’t a good idea. He too seemed to learn fast and it was Noia’s hope that she could put in a good word for him and get him moved in with regular officers in training, like herself.

And the subjects! Sure, there was instruction on how to sail these ships, and that was fascinating. But, it was more or less rote. If you did this and this, such and such would happen if the wind was one direction and the way you wanted to go was another. It was fairly simple to learn the combinations and then practice them.

It was learning navigation, though, that utterly fascinated her. She learned to use a device called a sextant, which measured the height of the sun above the horizon at High Sun. That told you how far north of the equator you were. And if you compared the time High Sun occurred, compared to what time it occurred in Hostigos, you could tell how far east or west of the city you were. You could then plot the two locations on a map and that’s where you were! It was the most amazing thing she’d ever imagined.

Of course, she learned not to trust just one observation of the sun. And then there were the devices that kept track of time, called clocks. There were to be two on each ship of the High King’s, each requiring a key to be inserted every few palm widths to wind the spring that made the works of the clock move and keep time. There was a whole, involved ritual with keeping the various clocks in sync between Hostigos and the ships.

Another thing that the High King and Captain Amby thought were highly important were maps. At least once a moon quarter a trainee officer would be put in a small boat with a crew of six sailors, and they would go to some inlet or area off the islands and then start measuring depths and angles. They also learned a lot about estimating distances, both at land and at sea.

They would take their completed chart back to the captain and he would compare it with the official chart. Noia was pleased that never once did her chart differ in any important way from the master charts.

Then, at the start of her third moon of training, the officers were given permission to return to Harphax City. They weren’t supposed to talk about the shipyard, but other than that, they had three days to themselves.

Trilium smiled and told Noia that he was going to find a cheap inn with some good food. He was going to eat his fill, taking his time. He would have a couple of mugs of beer with his meal, then adjourn to his room and sleep until it was time to row back to the yard.

Tanda Sa, on the other hand, was staying at the yard, intending on studying more about navigation, something he wasn’t very good at. Noia tried to talk him out of his plan, but he was insistent, even when she told him that they might not get another few days off for a couple of more moons. Finally she joined Trilium in one of the boats like they’d rowed to the yard, only this boat was one of a dozen being hauled behind by what the High King’s men called a “steam tugger.”

II

Legios and the Heavy Weapons Company had been one of the last units to return to Tecpan. He’d had a lot of time to think since the ambush and now that the familiar town was just a mile down the road from the barracks area, it was hard to just sit still.

Still, there were a myriad things to do after returning from any extended period in the field and he did them. There were things that had to be checked after you’d been in battle and he did those, too.

Big Mortar had long since vanished, and it was only Short and Legios left in the headquarters office. “You should return to your quarters, Captain,” the former sergeant told him. “There’s not much left here for right now. There will be plenty enough first thing in the morning.”

“Thanks, Short. I appreciate it.” Legios walked outside the headquarters building and glanced at the horse corrals. It was hot, but not that hot, and the town was less than a mile away. And he still wanted to think. Maybe a walk would clear his head.

He headed to town, his mind going over one explanation after another. There really was just one way to be sure. He would go to Maya and talk to her, away from her mother. He would gently ask her some penetrating questions about her mother and her mother’s former lover, now a hunted man.

He just couldn’t have Maya’s mother arrested. It was unfair in the extreme; she could have been as much of a dupe of Storax as any of them. No, a quiet talk with Maya, away from her mother. That would be the ticket!

His mind finally made up, he picked up his pace. Lady Talu’s gate was open and there were lights and sounds of talking coming from inside. Legios considered heading back to his room, but his duty and his concern drove him inside.

A servant bowed to him and waved him on. There were a half dozen people in the entry hall, drinking wine and talking. Maya saw him and ran to him, hugging him breathless. “I was so worried!” she told him, letting him go.

He chuckled. “They didn’t bring a tenth enough men, Lady Maya. But we avoided contact anyway, just to be safe.”

She hugged him again and kissed him on the cheek. “Come, get some wine to cut the dust of the trail!”

He realized that for a moon he’d been without a bath, without a shave, and rarely bothered to change his clothes. She came running back after a moment with a glass of some very good wine. “I probably should have gone to my room first and cleaned up. I’m afraid all I was thinking about was you,” he told her.

She smiled at him. “That’s what men do, Captain, when they’re away from the ones they care about for any length of time!”

He nodded at the truth of it. “Could we walk? Alone?” he asked her.

She laughed lightly. “It will cause a scandal! Surely, my Captain! My virtue will be protected by your need of a bath!”

He laughed at that too, wondering how such a fine young woman could be the daughter of a woman who appeared to be a traitor against Hostigos and Mexico.

Maya linked arms with him and led him outside, around the side of the house. “We wanted a nice garden, but there is just no water to spare for it,” she said sadly. “We’ve had to let it die. I only come now in the evening, when I can’t see the ruin the sun has left.”

“Maya...” Legios’ voice died away.

“What, darling?”

“What do you know of Lieutenant Storax?”

“Not much. My mother thinks highly of him, though. Or she did, until he ran off to join King Xyl.”

“Maya, there was no way for Storax himself to pass the word where we were marching. He had to have told someone and that person must have passed the word.”

“What are you saying?” Maya asked, drawing a little back.

“I’m saying that I am to be questioned tomorrow by the town watch. I will have to tell them what I know. Please, I need to know if the person who could have passed on that information might have been Lady Talu.”

He could see no expression on her face. There was something in her eyes that he didn’t recognize. “Lady Talu, Captain, has the brains of desert ant–one of the tiny red ones. She has the sexual needs of a goat. Have you talked to anyone of your suspicions?”

“No, of course not! I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted to be sure, first!”

She made an odd gesture and for a second Legios didn’t realize what had happened. He looked down at the dagger buried to the hilt in his stomach and then back up at Maya with a look of incomprehension on his face.

“No, Lady Talu didn’t tell anyone. I know that for a fact, because I’m the intelligencer.”

Legios met her eyes, wondering what he could do. It didn’t really hurt; it didn’t even feel very cold. He opened his mouth to scream, but his breath caught and he suddenly felt dizzy.

He was a dead man and deserved it for being such a fool! He sagged to his knees and curled up into fetal ball on the ground.

Maya reached down, grabbed the back of his tunic, dragged him a few feet, then pulled down some dead plants on top of him, then she turned and walked away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

III

Judy sat up in bed at the knock on their bedroom door. Gamelin was faster, racing to the door, one of the new shotguns in his hand. It was Sergeant Hollar and one of the palace functionaries, and it was the latter who spoke to him. “Lord Gamelin! This man tells me that he must see you and your lady wife! At once!”

“Sergeant?” Gamelin nodded at him. Not many people knew that it was really Sergeant Baron Hollar, but he was one of them. The man wasn’t here on a whim.

“Earlier, I went to see Lieutenant Short Mortar. He told me that Captain Legios had left for his rooms for the night. I went to his rooms and he wasn’t there. I went to Lady Talu’s, thinking he might have gone there. They told me he’d been there earlier, but had left,” Sergeant Hollar related.

“You might have missed him.”

“I might have, sir. But a few heartbeats after I left, I saw Lady Maya in that coach of theirs. She was heading for the main gate.”

“Lady Maya, not her mother?”

“Yes, Lord. Sir, I fear the worst.”

Gamelin looked at Judy, who nodded. He agreed with Sergeant Hollar as well. “Fraxi,” he commanded the servant, “please if you would, run down to Shuria’s quarters and tell him I want to see him and Puma at once. They’re going on a little run tonight. Sergeant, go to the Duty Officer downstairs. Tell him I want the Field Intelligence Company turned out at once. I’ll be down in a finger width.”

“Yes, lord!” The sergeant saluted and ran down the corridor. Seeing that, Fraxi, the chamberlain, waddled much faster than he had before.

Gamelin turned to his wife. “I will go. You get with Lady Lydia and the investigators.” He saw her expression and sighed. “By your leave, of course, Countess Judy.”

She sighed. “The problem with having two people who naturally want to command sleeping in the same bed is that they both want to command. Go...you are right. I can deal with Lydia and the investigators best. I don’t want to see what happened, if the baron is correct.”

Gamelin nodded, as he started pulling on his pants and tunic, then his boots. “The big thing will be what the baron does if he’s right. He’s very fond of Legios. And his concern is nothing compared to the Mortar brothers.”

“For that matter, so is the rest of the Heavy Weapons Company. Didn’t we just get a new captain from Brigadier Markos?”

“Yes. Galzar’s Mace! If he has to assume command, I wouldn’t envy him!”

“He led the men at the Wagon Box Fight,” Judy reminded her husband. “He abandoned his post to do it. That is not the sort of thing a coward or a stupid man does. See that he’s roused as well. If Legios is down, I want this Gryllos on duty when the sun comes up tomorrow.”

He nodded, then he too turned and ran out of the room. Judy, on the other hand, just threw on a heavy robe and went two doors down the hall. Lydia was already awake, having heard the hasty steps in the hallway outside her room.

Gamelin found Vosper standing in front of the Field Intelligence Company and grimaced. They were armed with rifles. “Shotguns and pistols, Captain Vosper. Prepare to move out in half a finger width.”

“Yes, sir!” The men and women, the finest fighters in all of Mexico and Outpost, sprinted for their armory.

Gamelin turned to Shuria. “A woman left Tecpan a short while ago in a coach. It’s a very strong coach, with many horses. I want her back as soon as possible. Alive if possible, dead if there is no other way.”

The odd pair looked at each other. Gamelin wasn’t sure what the nonverbal communication was, but Shuria spoke to him. “Signal south, that she is not to be allowed to change horses.”

“Done!”

“Tomorrow, by nightfall, we will have her. Two days later, she will be sitting there.” He motioned to a chair a few feet away. “Come, Puma, we have a little run.”

The two of them simply vanished into the night. Gamelin shuddered. Maya was going to have a terrible surprise, sometime tomorrow!

The Field Intelligence Company, thirty men and women, none older than twenty-five, unless you counted Vosper, followed Gamelin into the night.

“Sergeant Hollar,” Gamelin told the sergeant, “you may set the pace.”

The sergeant had been a soldier a long time and baron or not, he was a hard man in a hurry. The pace he said was nearly as quick as the Ruthani would have run. One of the things the Field Intelligence Company was famous for, after being bloody fighters, was their ability to run that was nearly equal to the Ruthani, and their skill at desert concealment that was as good as the Ruthani.

They raced through the night. The gate to Lady Talu’s house was closed and Sergeant Hollar smashed on it with both fists, a rapid tattoo. A sleepy attendant appeared and was brushed aside. Vosper went with his men to search the inside, while Hollar sent one party around one side, while he went the other.

Gamelin stood in the main courtyard, standing resolute. It didn’t take but a few heartbeats before one of the younger women from the Field Intelligence Company came and saluted.

“Sir, Sergeant Hollar says to come quick. I am to find the priests of Galzar next.”

“He lives?”

The young woman’s eyes were wide. “Yes. Not for long, though, priest or no priest.”

She was off, then, running through the gate.

Gamelin went quickly around the corner, and found Sergeant Hollar, sitting next to Legios who was lying on the ground.

Legios looked up at Gamelin and grimaced. “Sorry, Lord Count!”

“What happened?”

“Maya stabbed me. I wanted to ask her if she knew anything about her mother being a traitor. She stabbed me, then laughed about it in my face, that her mother was a fool, that she was the real spy. I’m not sure about that, but I am sure about the knife in my gut.”

Gamelin looked and saw the dagger hilt. A lethal wound, to be sure. But he also knew that until the dagger was pulled out the bleeding would be at a minimum, and Legios would stay alive. He had, then, two or three days perhaps, if he was lucky. A moon quarter if he was unlucky.

Vosper appeared. “Lady Talu was sleeping with one of the richer grain merchants. She seems surprised at the fuss. Lady Maya is not to be found, nor is their carriage.”

“There were tracks, leading out the gate,” someone volunteered.

“Where are those priests?” Sergeant Hollar said, sounding frustrated.

A few moments later, two men in wolf-head’s capes came running up. The older of the pair looked at the wound for a finger width before turning to Gamelin.

“Lord Count, he is sorely wounded. We need the top of large table, six feet by three feet. Remove the legs and anything else like that. Bring it here, and we will carefully move the captain onto that. Then six stout men will carry it to our hospital.”

“I’m going to die,” Legios said bluntly. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

The priest of Galzar nodded. “Young man, we all die. However, while this sort of wound was once always fatal, the High King’s words have helped us in our ability to deal with them. Perhaps you will die, perhaps not. I won’t lie to you, Captain, about how serious this is, but I can tell you that it is possible you will live. In order to live, Captain, you are going to have to be brave, strong, and willing to listen to what we tell you.”

The priest turned to Gamelin. “The table, please, Count!”

Gamelin laughed, and waved people to do it.

Vosper spoke up. “What about Lady Talu and the servants?”

“Bind them, gag them, take them to the palace. Hold each separately. The grain merchant as well. No one is to talk to them, there are to be two guards placed on each at all times. We will question them tomorrow.”

Vosper saluted and he too was off, shouting orders.

It didn’t take long to find a table. The priests of Galzar supervised sliding a heavy cloth of some sort under Legios, moving him as little as possible. There was room for eight people to carry the table. Somehow, out of the night, the two Mortar brothers appeared, they, Gamelin, Sergeant Hollar and the four senior sergeants of the Field Intelligence Company carried him the mile and a bit to the hospital run by the priests.

They placed the table down and then Legios was lifted onto a bed that had wheels on it. The head priest turned to Gamelin. “We will do what we can. You must trust us, do you understand?”

Sergeant Hollar spoke up. “I will stay with him, if that’s all right, priest.”

“You will stay some distance away, if your duties will permit it.”

“The baron’s duties will permit it,” Gamelin told the priest, his voice dry and cold.

Gamelin turned to the Mortar brothers. “You two, come with me.”

Gamelin gestured at one of Field Intelligence soldiers, the woman who had fetched him. “Big, if you would, write an order to your duty officer to send two messengers with this soldier. Do not tell anyone of what has happened to Legios.”

“The men deserve to know,” Big said in a bass rumble that while quiet, rumbled anyway.

“They will know, tomorrow at dawn.” Gamelin turned to the young woman. “You will fetch the messengers and bring them here, have them report to Sergeant Hollar. You are not to tell them where they are going or what they are going to do, beyond serving as a nobleman’s messenger. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

Big had written down the order and handed it to her.

“Go!” Gamelin commanded.

He turned to the odd pair of brothers. “Come with me.”

They started walking towards the palace. They’d gone halfway when Gamelin stopped and faced them. “Soldiers die in battle. Soldiers are wounded in battle. A leader cannot be so popular that his loss sorely wounds his company. The company has to be able to reconstitute, reorganize and continue on, no matter who is lost.”

“Yes, sir, we understand,” Short Mortar told him.

“Countess Judy has commanded that Captain Gryllos take command of the Heavy Weapons Company.”

There was a moment of silence, then Short said, “Yes, sir!”

“Do you understand that she didn’t ask me who was to take command, she didn’t ask if I agreed with her decision, she simply commanded it. To be honest, if it had been up to me, I’d not have stopped there. I’d have posted the two of you to other companies. Companies of your own, with an additional pip on your collars.”

“Pardon?” Big asked, confused.

“Each of you, I’m sure could do a fine job commanding the Heavy Weapons Company. The problem is, there are two of you and only one can command. I understand why Captain Legios left things the way they were, but it has to stop, do you understand? For your own good, for the good of Mexico and Hostigos.”

“Count,” Short Mortar said, speaking frankly, “we trained Lieutenant Smyla, who was Captain Gryllos’ second in command. He’s a good man, sir. And as good as he was, he talked incessantly of how good his boss was. Then he went back to the Sixth and applied some serious mortar hurt on our enemies! And Captain Gryllos encouraged him. Both of them are our kind of men, sir! The man who told Smyla to bring the mortars to the battle, the man who told Smyla to set up and start shooting! He’s our kind of officer as well.”

Big Mortar nodded. “Count, it’s like running downhill. You get going fast and after that, it gets really hard to change course and impossible to stop, until you run out of hill. Short and I know we couldn’t keep serving together. But neither one of us knew how to stop.”

“Well, it’ll stop, but not soon. Losing one senior officer isn’t good, losing the three of you at once? That wouldn’t be good at all. Now, the three of us are going to go find this Captain Gryllos and pound on his door in the middle of the night. We will see him dressed and the two of you will take him to Heavy Weapons and when the sun comes up, you will form the men and tell them their captain lies sorely wounded. I think you’d better say he’s not expected to live.”

“Captain, we’ve both seen men wounded like that. None of them live.”

“Well, the priests of Galzar Wolf’s Head said there was a chance, so I’d give them the benefit of the doubt. Not that I don’t agree with you. Come, let us go ruin this captain’s sleep!”

IV

Gryllos awoke from an exhausted sleep, and, hearing a commotion outside his door, hopped out of bed and opened it. Jumper was there, a pistol in his hand, threatening three men.

Gryllos had never met them, but Lieutenant Smyla’s description of the Mortar brothers practically ensured that was who he was looking at. The third man was roughly pushed back by the huge mountain that had to be Big Mortar.

“Jumper, please,” Gryllos told the boy, “I’m not sure what you are doing here, but please lower your pistol.”

“I’m guarding you! They called Shuria and Puma out in the middle of the night! Already they are running south! There is treason afoot!”

“Well, two of these gentlemen, officers of Hostigos, I might add, I’m pretty sure are friends of a friend of mine. So please, Jumper, lower the pistol.”

Jumper did so, and then looked hard at the third man. “Him, I know him! He is a lieutenant in the army of the High King. He came to see my grandfather!”

The third man, the one Gryllos didn’t recognize, laughed and slapped his thigh. “And I remember you, too. Jumper, as I recall? You wanted to join the fighting!”

Jumper nodded.

“Well, Jumper,” the third man went on, “a few things happened since the last time you saw me. Do you remember Lady Judy, who was with me then?”

Jumper nodded. “The Countess of Mexico!”

The man grinned broadly. “Well, of Tecpan, anyway. I’m pleased to say, she’s my wife these days. And I did well in the war and was promoted a few times myself.”

Gryllos’ throat worked. He knew who was married to Lady Judy! A count! A general! Jumper had held a general and a count at gunpoint! He was ruined!

Gamelin pushed between the Mortar brothers. “Captain Gryllos, I presume?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t even know Jumper was here. He was just trying to do his duty, sir.”

“Well, he did. He woke you up. Now, sir, put on your best uniform. You have half a finger width.”

Gryllos didn’t bother closing the door; he just frantically changed and saluted when he was ready. Gamelin simply spun on his heel and started walking, followed by the Mortar brothers.

Gryllos knew he looked like a fool, running to catch up, because they walked very fast. Their expressions were so grim that he decided that there was a time and a place for questions, but this wasn’t either one.

As they left the palace it was impossible not to notice that soldiers were forming up and marching into the night. It was also impossible not to notice that Jumper had joined the column of officers. Gryllos saw the count turn and see the boy, smile, and say nothing. If the count said nothing, who was Gryllos to say anything?

They went out the main gate, which was closed; something it hadn’t been the night before when he and Jumper had passed into the city. There was an exchange, and only a postern was opened to let them out.

They were about half way to a cluster of buildings a mile from the city gate, when Gamelin spoke again. He didn’t turn; he just kept walking as he talked.

“Earlier this evening, the commander of the Heavy Weapons Company, Captain Legios, was sorely wounded, stabbed in the belly by an agent of King Xyl. The priests of Galzar say there is a chance he will live. Even if he does, he will not be able to command for several moons. You, I understand, have some experience in being seriously wounded.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The countess has appointed you to command the Heavy Weapons Company. You have what is left of this night to learn everything you can from the two Lieutenants Mortar. Tomorrow at dawn you will announce to your company that you are assuming command.”

Gryllos swallowed. “The activity tonight, sir? What’s that?”

“The woman who stabbed Captain Legios escaped in a carriage. In the meantime, her mother and their servants have been arrested. We are detaining anyone known to have frequented their house, and they will be questioned as well. The town watch and units of the Army of Mexico are conducting those arrests.”

They came to the front of a long, low building, and Gamelin simply walked inside. A man in his early twenties sprang to attention and saluted. “Lord Count!”

“At ease, Lieutenant. We need to use Captain Legios’ office for a short time.”

“Sir!” The young man went and held it open, and the party trooped in. Gryllos could see that the young lieutenant eyed Jumper curiously, but said nothing.

Gamelin sat down at Legios’ desk, found paper and a pen and started writing. “This will do it. It’s official.” He handed it Gryllos, who nodded.

It was the usual terse military command. “Captain Gryllos, you are directed in the name of Kalvan, High King of Hostigos, Tuck, Duke of Mexico and Countess Judy of Tecpan to assume command of the Heavy Weapons Company effective this day.”

The count got up, took their salutes and left.

There was a knock on the door, and the duty lieutenant poked his head in. “What’s going on?”

Big looked at the lieutenant, then at Gryllos. “We should at least tell the duty officer.”

Gryllos looked at the order in his hand, and then made up his mind. “No.” He turned to the young lieutenant. “Lieutenant, assemble the company at once. Duty uniform.”

“You were supposed to wait until dawn!” Big said in a whisper that was anything but quiet.

“Can I call you Big?”

“You’re the boss, you can call me anything you want.”

“Big, it is tomorrow morning already, and the order doesn’t have an effective date different than that.”

Big inclined his head, then looked at the duty lieutenant. “You were told to do something, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir!”

It didn’t take long, but then, Gryllos would have been amazed if it had. In a finger width more than four hundred men were formed up in ranks. There were four blocks of a hundred, each with a lieutenant standing in front of their men. The two Mortar Brothers and a young man of about eighteen formed up behind Gryllos.

Gryllos ignored the quiet discussion between Short Mortar and the young man about where he should stand. Finally, they were ready.

“I am Captain Gryllos, formerly of the Sixth Mounted Infantry, under Brigadier Markos,” he said into the night.

“Earlier tonight, Captain Legios was attacked and stabbed by a traitor to Mexico, a traitor to Hostigos. Your captain has been sorely wounded. I am told that the priests of Galzar think there is a chance he will live, but in the meantime, Countess Judy has assigned me to command the Heavy Weapons Company.”

There was a stir in the ranks, not so much whispers, but a rustle of movement.

“The traitor who stabbed your captain has fled. Even now, some of our Ruthani scouts are hot on her trail. She will be brought back to Tecpan to answer for her deeds.

“Right now the city behind us is swirling with soldiers making arrests in the night. It doesn’t take a very smart soldier to know that the people will find that very unsettling. We must take it upon ourselves to be careful, cautious, and above all, fair. We will do our duty as commanded by the High King, Duke Tuck, Countess Judy or General Gamelin. Let no man, no woman, doubt that!”

“Three cheers!” Big Mortar roared. “Three cheers for Captain Legios!” The cheers were deafening.

“Now, three cheers for Captain Gryllos! He commanded Smyla at the Wagon Box Fight! Smyla is a man who knows how to use mortars and we taught him!”

The cheers weren’t as loud, but they were enthusiastic.

“Officers call in a finger width,” Gryllos shouted. “The rest of you are dismissed.”

They went back into the headquarters; Gryllos doubted if the officers were going to need a finger width to assemble. He waved to Jumper and motioned him towards the office.

Gryllos closed the door behind them. “Jumper, why were you at my door?”

“I said it. I heard what was going on! Treason! I wanted you safe.”

“Why me?”

“You are a fighting man! I want to fight! If I am close by, I will get a chance!”

“Can you read or write?”

“Of course!”

“Can you use the pistol you had? Can you shoot straight?”

“I am the best shot of all of the boys of the redoubt!”

“Now, I’m going to have to ask you something hard. If you wish to serve me, you will have to not only obey my orders, but the orders of all those placed above you–which is, at your age, practically everyone.”

“And you think it’s different for a Ruthani boy?” Jumper sniffed contemptuously.

“Just checking. I will make you my junior aide. You will have a lot to learn. Do you understand that if you don’t learn, I will have to set you aside?”

Jumper lifted his chin. “I saw the men Tanda Havra and Duke Tuck sent back! They weren’t men! They wouldn’t do for her what they demanded of their own children! They deserved to be set aside! I won’t be! I swear it!”

“Okay. Now, I have to go meet my officers, you will be there.”

The only hiccup there came when Gryllos got to Jumper and his post as junior aide. A bare-cheeked boy, barely eighteen summers, spoke up. “But, Captain! I was Captain Legios’ junior aide!”

Gryllos looked at the Mortar Brothers who knew instantly what he was thinking. This could work, Gryllos told himself in satisfaction. It might just possibly work, as they nodded.

“You are a half-pip ensign, young man, is that correct?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“The Mortar brothers tell me you performed well in the recent action. You are promoted junior lieutenant, and are now my senior aide. Your first duty will be to get with Jumper and explain to him the duties of a junior aide.”

The boy nodded, obviously pleased.

V

Puma ran easily beside Shuria through the night and into the new day. She saw him sniff and she nodded. Yes, she could smell the dust too! It wouldn’t be long now!

He motioned to her shotgun and she nodded. Then another gesture, a stirrup motion. Well, they were, after all, chasing a woman. Earlier, Shuria had been blunt, just after they’d started. “She is a traitor. She can tell the countess who her confederates are. Odds are they will already be known, because the countess will be questioning everyone this woman has ever talked to. In short, if this woman shows any hint of going for a weapon, kill her.”

That had seemed like common sense to Puma, much more sensible, in fact, than trying to return a prisoner. They rounded a rocky outcrop and their quarry was barely a half mile ahead. Shuria grinned and so did Puma. They had run very fast, but saving something for the end. Now, this was the end.

His stride lengthened and speeded up and Puma did the same. The woman turned and saw them, and then whipped the horses once again. Puma wanted to laugh! There was no faster way to bring the chase to a quick close, than trying to spur on horses who were nearly dead. Soon one would die and that would be the end.

The woman turned around and fired a pistol at Shuria. He saw the motion and swerved slightly, and the ball went wide. He bent down a bit and Puma eyed the distance, speeded up, slowed down, and hit his hand perfectly. He threw her forward, the last few feet.

Puma landed lightly in the carriage, but the woman heard her anyway. Again, she was surprisingly quick, turning and firing another pistol at Puma before Puma had steadied herself. Puma stepped forward and put the barrels of the shotgun against the woman’s back.

“So, you know what this gun does, eh?” Puma laughed at the terror on the other’s face. “Now, stop the horses.”

“You stop them!”

“You can stop the horses and be alive, or I will stop them, but you will be dead. Stop the horses.”

The woman hauled back on the reins, and a moment later they stopped in a swirl of dust. Shuria pulled the woman roughly out of the carriage and swiftly bound her, including a gag.

“Puma, you are wounded.”

“A scratch, cousin.”

“That’s a lot of blood for a scratch.”

Their prisoner laughed and Shuria kicked her.

“My water skin took the bullet, cousin!” Puma told him. “I felt a small burn, but the stain is water.”

Shuria checked, and sure enough, there was simply a red mark along Puma’s ribs. Shuria turned to their prisoner. “That’s really too bad, because Puma carried our water. We will be fine, fancy lady of Tenosh, but before you get back to Tecpan, you’ll be thirsty enough to drink piss!”

The woman made a shrugging motion.

Puma walked over and knocked her from her feet and then picked her up and dropped her into the back of the carriage like a sack of grain. “Do you know who I am, woman?” Puma asked of their prisoner.

If their prisoner hadn’t been gagged, Puma was sure she would have spit. As it was, she tried.

“I am Puma! The daughter of the Lion of the Ruthani! Like Tazi of Mogdai, a village girl of the Ruthani!” She pressed the muzzle of the shotgun against the woman’s chest. “We were asked to bring you back alive, but told it would be okay if you were dead. You know how much easier it would be if you were dead?”

The woman said something insulting, muffled by the gag. Shuria climbed up on the carriage and Puma joined him. Shuria drove, Puma sat with her shotgun aimed at the woman’s head. She’d already learned that the woman was sensitive about her face. Puma thought that was very ironic, and enjoyed the woman’s fear.

A palm width later, Shuria stopped and they watered the horses. There wasn’t much water, not even enough for the horses.

Night closed down on the desert, making it a little better and Shuria had slowed the horses to a slow walk. A little before midnight a patrol of Mexicotál mounted infantry appeared. They quickly changed out the horses, and now, significantly reinforced, they started cantering back to Tecpan.

They arrived shortly after High Sun, many palm widths in advance of when Shuria had promised. Soldiers grabbed the woman and hauled her away. Another group of soldiers faced outward, making sure that some of those gathered, evidently comrades-in-arms of the man who’d been attacked, didn’t do anything foolish.

The countess and her husband appeared briefly and gave a few orders. Then Gamelin walked away, taking Shuria with him, while Judy beckoned to Puma.

Puma followed the countess into the palace, up several flights of stairs until they reached a familiar place: Lady Lydia’s office.

“Are you ready to go to Xipototec?” Lydia asked.

Puma bobbed her head.

“Right now, this very moment?”

Again Puma bobbed her head. “Yes, Lady Lydia. It was only a single day’s run, followed by two in a carriage. I’m well rested.”

“Go then. See Tanda Havra at Xipototec. Tell her I sent you,” Lady Lydia told her.

“And Shuria?”

“Shuria did well before he met you; I'm sure he will do well after you leave.”

“He is a brave man and a stout warrior. There will not be time to say goodbye. Tell him it was good to run with him.”

It was Countess Judy who spoke. “I’ll tell him. I’m sorry that we require this of you, but it’s clear that King Xyl isn’t going to oblige us by taking a year off to get his kingdom in order.”

Puma responded to that by standing and walking rapidly through the palace. As soon as she was outdoors, she set to some serious running.

VI

Freidal turned to Elspeth and laughed. A delegation of the local merchants was dressed in their court finest, looking extremely awkward. They were across the presence room; two guards holding them back with leveled halberds. “Peacocks!” he whispered to his wife.

“And you are standing there in full armor. It’s mid-summer, Freidal. Are you comfortable?”

“No.” He motioned to the guards as they stood up. The guards’ halberds went vertical, then a solid thump on the flagstones of the presence chamber as their halberd butts landed on the stone. The mass of merchants headed his way, where four guards waited five steps in front of Freidal and Elspeth, their billhooks parallel to the ground.

“Sire!” the man in the lead said, “we’ve come to petition you! The Lost Ruthani are beggaring every gold merchant in Zarthan! They sell gold as if it was dirt!”

Freidal smiled slightly. “I’m told that same thing is true in Mountain Wall. That the gold lies on the ground like any other rock.”

“Well–yes, but before Count Mountain Wall put his gold in a vault and doled it out only a little at a time! This is simply unfair! Now, Count Mountain Wall is selling his gold as well, at discounts to match the Ruthani! You must put a tariff on Ruthani gold!” The man looked around slyly. “Sire, that tariff would mean a lot of gold would come into the kingdom’s coffers.”

Time slowed and seemed to stop. The motion Freidal saw seemed to be drawn out for an eternity. Freidal saw the pistol come up; saw where it was aimed. He spun and lunged at Elspeth, trying to cover her. The bullet slammed into his back, between his shoulder blades.

A heartbeat later, Elspeth was trying to push him off, while behind him were more gunshots and the awful sounds of halberds hitting bare flesh.

He couldn’t move; he couldn’t speak. He smiled wanly at Elspeth and let darkness take him. At the instant before consciousness left him, he thought wryly that he’d often complained that everyone shot at either his head or his right shoulder. His back was something new...

VII

A man came running into Alros’ bedroom screaming that the king was dead. She had been sitting quietly, reading a report from Echanistra. She lunged out of her chair and ran as fast as she could.

The presence room was a charnel house. A dozen men in rich merchant robes lay hacked and shot through and through, with fierce men of the King’s guard standing over them, with her brother’s batman, Tiki, standing bloody, a pistol in his hand.

A few feet away, Elspeth was holding Freidal’s hand, while a priest of Galzar worked at removing Freidal’s armor. From the volume of curses coming from her brother, he couldn’t possibly be seriously hurt.

A finger width later Denethon arrived from the army headquarters and not much later than that, Xitki Quillan.

The priest of Galzar stood up, and held up Freidal’s back plate. “As you can see, a score, not a penetration!” the priest said loudly. “The king had his breath knocked away, and he did the same thing to the Queen! There is no serious hurt to either!”

Alros looked at the pile of bodies and cursed the priest’s glibness. She looked at her true father, who nodded. She went and knelt next to her brother. “Freidal, I know I made a mistake after our father died. This time, it will be in cold blood, I swear.”

She saw Freidal glance at the bodies and then to his friend and confidant since he’d been a young boy.

“It would be for the best, Freidal,” Xitki told him.

“Do it quick,” Elspeth said, her voice filled with anger. “Or I’ll do it for you. And then there will be much blood and none of it will be cold.”

Alros leaned close to her husband and whispered, “I need a hundred of your best men, outside, as soon as possible.”

“I brought them with me. They are covering the exits.”

“Arrest every guard in this room. None of them are to be harmed, even if it means men die to subdue them.”

Denethon bobbed his head. He turned to Xitki. “Count Quillan, may I have your leave to bring order to this place?” He spoke loudly so that all might hear him.

“You have my leave,” Xitki answered.

“And mine,” Freidal spoke. “Galzar has touched me with his Mace! It hurts to the very heavens!”

The priest of Galzar spoke quietly. “You have a bad bruise, sire. Sire, it is close to your spine. You must rest; you must remain still. Swelling could mean your own flesh would press against the nerves. You could end up a cripple.”

Freidal froze. Elspeth waved at one of the women of the court, huddled in a shocked group well to the rear. “You, Lady Asterion. If you would please, go to my rooms. There is a jeweled box on my dresser, with a circle of pearls on the top. Inside is a container with little round white things inside. Fetch it for me as fast as the wind!”

The woman moved slowly at first, but picked up speed as she got past the pile of bodies.

Alros moved forward, standing next to Tiki. “Captain, order your men to place their weapons on the ground. You too.”

“Lady Alros?” the retainer questioned.

“Captain, I gave you an order. Do as you are told, or Count Quillan will shoot you where you stand.”

Tiki looked and saw the pistol held firmly in the count’s hand, pointed right at him. He’d known the count for forty years; he wouldn’t hesitate to fire and he wouldn’t miss.

“Lower your weapons,” Tiki commanded the soldiers.

He turned back to Alros. “My lady, we were protecting the King!”

“Your pistol as well, Tiki,” Alros insisted.

He shrugged and placed it on the floor, and then stood back up.

Men came in, binding hands. When it came to be Tiki’s turn, he held out his hands and spoke to Alros in a calm voice. “We were protecting our King.”

Elspeth answered that. “The one man with a pistol shot at me, not Freidal. I distinctly saw you shoot that man yourself, then command, ‘Kill them all! Let the gods deal with the guilty and innocent! They have tried to kill the King! Kill them all!”

Tiki stooped, going for the pistol. A pike sent the weapon skittering away, and a heartbeat later another struck Tiki behind the knees, forcing him down.

“Gag them all,” Alros said briskly. “Keep them separated, no one is to talk to them. We will question each separately.”

Tiki toppled over, lying on his side, frothing at the mouth, white spittle on his lips. His feet drummed on the flagstones of the room and he was dead.

Alros walked up to Tiki and kicked him in the face. She faced the other captives in the room. “If any of you think that his death got you off the hook, forget it. You might as well die now if that’s your choice!”

There were twenty scared guards, but no further deaths.

Lady Asterion returned and Elspeth commanded someone to bring her wine. A few heartbeats later, Freidal swallowed the two white pills and looked at her. “And how soon until I am well?”

“They will reduce the swelling. We’ll give you a couple more in a few palm widths. Let me know if your stomach hurts.”

“My stomach? The only thing I feel is the horse who kicked me in the back!”

A half dozen men, accompanied by several of the priests lifted Freidal up and carried him towards their rooms. Alros waved and except for her, Denethon, Xitki Quillan and Elspeth the room cleared out, except for the dead.

“This is going to be a big mess,” Alros said sadly. “All of these men have families and friends. There will be more than one blood feud with the crown because of this.”

Elspeth made a rude gesture. “Excuse me! There was a plot against the crown! Against Zarthan! Yes, most of these men were innocent victims and I mourn their passing. Freidal will too and he will pay indemnities to their families.

“Yes, it was our guards who killed them, but at the urging of the plotters, not any of us.”

Xitki nodded. “It is traditional, Lady Alros. The king offers to pay indemnities. If anyone declares blood feud after that, no money is paid–to anyone.”

“What if they don’t tell us about the feud?” Alros demanded.

“Why, as you would expect,” the count told her. “We take it from their hides and they lose everything. Their lands, their status and their lives.”

Alros gestured at the bottle still in Elspeth’s hand. “And that? More of Lord Tuck’s magic?”

“No, more of mine. And it’s not magic. You here, you have to swear to me that you will not tell Freidal what I use it for.”

“Why is that, highness?” Quillan asked.

“Swear first!”

They did.

Elspeth grinned. “I explained it earlier. I’m surprised Alros didn’t pick up on it. It reduces swelling. I use it to make my moon flow easier.”

Quillan smiled thinly; Denethon blushed.

“Enough of this,” Elspeth told them. “I talked to Tuck not so long ago, because I’m getting low on my supply of these. I’ll talk to the priests of Galzar. In a few moons, every woman in Zarthan will come to love these.

“What we need to do now is nip this in the bud!”

Denethon shrugged. “Elspeth, the classic counter-stroke is to make it clear to the plotters that we can hurt them a hundred-fold over. The problem is, we are lucky to hurt them at all, and then, only when someone does something as stupid as Tiki did just now.”

Alros frowned. “Was it stupid?”

“Of course it was stupid!” Denethon remonstrated with his wife.

“That’s just it. We had already begun to suspect Tiki. We were having him watched. What if they noticed? In one stroke, so to speak, they remove a possible lead to the plotters, while taking a shot at the queen.”

“That’s not going to go very far to encourage loyalty among their servants,” Xitki observed.

“We have no idea why any of them are doing these things. Tiki? He was Freidal’s loyal friend since boyhood. Who does he try to kill? Me?” Elspeth replied. “That’s going to look very straightforward, won’t it?”

“They are outthinking us,” Denethon added. “I’m not used to being outthought.”

“Well, we’ll just take it up a notch and get really, really serious!” Elspeth told them. “I take people trying to kill me very badly. I take people trying to kill my husband worse. And I’m pregnant and let’s face it, the attack could have just as easily been against the baby.”

“It was against both of you,” the Count of the Central Valley said bluntly. “Both of you. I’ve seen too many deaths in childbirth, Elspeth. This turns my stomach like nothing in a long, long time. These people will find to their great remorse that they’ve gone too far.”


	14. New Allies

I

Noia didn’t look around; instead she opened the door to the building and went inside without hesitation. The day had been a little hazy outside, but the sun was bright enough that she had to spend a few heartbeats letting her eyes adjust to the dimness inside the shop.

A young man appeared and smiled pleasantly at her. “May I help you, noble lady?”

“I’d like to speak to Solon, please. I’ve come from afar.”

The clerk bobbed his head. “Trader Solon is always fascinated by stories from far away, my lady. Who may I say has come to call?”

“I am Noius,” she told him.

He nodded and walked briskly towards a long counter that ran across one end of the room she was in. He went behind it, and then up a flight of stairs that she’d only dimly noticed.

After a few minutes an older man, a man who’d seen many hard days, but who had grown soft recently, came down the steps behind the young man.

The older man held out his hand to Noia. “I’m Solon. I hear you’re from far away.”

“The Kingdom of Zarthan, from a small county south of Echanistra,” she said, nodding.

“Goodness! That is far! And because of the war, there’s been almost no travel! I don’t suppose you would like to come sit in my office, sip some good tea, have some very nice biscuits and tell me of your travels?”

“That would be fine, sir. I’d like that.”

He led the way up. It wasn’t until she was nearly at the top of the steps did she notice that the pace up was very brisk and that evidently she’d been wrong about Solon having grown soft.

In a moment they were seated at a table and he poured her some tea in an odd mug. It wasn’t a very generous serving, she thought.

“Do you have something interesting for me?” he asked.

Noia reached into her belt and pulled the coin out, then set it on the table in front of her and started it spinning on one edge. As it started to slow, she scooped it back up and returned to her waistband.

“No names,” Solon said, “but where did you come by that?”

“North Port.”

“Ah! That Noius! I thought so! So you’ve come to learn about the new forms of ship building?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, tell me of your journey here. Once again, no names.”

So for the next palm width she described her trip to Echanistra, then Baytown, Outpost, Hostigos Town and finally Harphax City.

At the end he nodded. “The world is getting smaller, eh? Five moons ago you were on the other side of the world!”

“Well, certainly the other side of this part of it,” she told him.

“Ah! The High King’s odd notion of the shape of the world! Round like a ball! It is a little much to accept.”

“It fits with what I’ve seen on my journey,” she told him. “You see the tops of mountains, the tops of ships first, as you approach them, until finally you get close and see the bottom. That wouldn’t happen if the world was flat.”

“True enough, but as all men know, the earth isn’t flat. There are highs and lows, mountains and valleys.”

“Not on the ocean,” Noia told him.

He crooked his head and looked at her. “No, I suppose not. I’m afraid I’m not very fond of open water, Lady Noius. It goes up and down and while not as much as the land, much more quickly and much too often. I’m afraid my belly is entirely too large to be upset.”

She smiled and nodded.

“You understand that I wouldn’t mind hearing more of stories such as yours,” he told her. “I have a circle of friends who, like me, vicariously enjoy hearing about the exploits of someone in distant lands, while remaining safe at home. I have a number of correspondents in various places who forward such stories to me.”

“So I’m given to understand.”

“Again, without mentioning names, after you return home, the previous person should work for you for the time being. Discretion is useful, you understand?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And...I understand that you will shortly be going to sea.”

She smiled. “I can’t say when, but eventually, yes.”

“Come please, I want you to see something.”

He walked out of his office and along a catwalk that looked down on a huge warehouse floor, a floor filled with bales and boxes, stacks of grain and stacks of who knew what, everywhere.

At the far end there was a large window, one of the largest spans of clear glass that Noia had ever seen in her life. The window looked down on a busy freight yard. Men and animals toiled, loading and unloading wagons. Bags, boxes and crates were moving in all directions, some to wagons, some into the warehouse.

“Do you see the wagon just beneath us?” Solon asked and Noia assured him she did.

“In a moment, a man will emerge from the warehouse, watch for him. He’s a little shorter than most of the rest, but that’s not his most memorable feature.”

Solon wasn’t forthcoming about what was memorable about the man, which was curious, but Noia waited patiently.

Then a man walked out and she only caught the briefest glimpse of his face. He was short and squat, and if anything, even less beautiful than Noia. She managed to control her anger and stay her tongue, but she wasn’t sure how long she could maintain an air of indifference.

Other men were lined up at the wagon, waiting for bags of what appeared to be grain. Two men on the wagon would drag a bag from the pile on the wagon and place it on the back of the next man in line and he’d lug it into the building.

The man she been watching turned slightly when he reached the wagon and took a bag over his left shoulder, not on his back. Then he turned a quarter turn and received another sack of grain on his right shoulder.

A hundred pounds each! Noia thought as she saw him start back towards the warehouse, carrying them both as easily as the others carried one. Seen from the front, he was even uglier than she’d thought before. He had a beetled brows, his hair stuck out wildly in all directions, with equally bushy eyebrows. His arms were thick, his legs were thick, his neck was thick, and his expression seemed to indicate he was a bit thick as well.

“That is a man named Phelen,” Solon told her. “He came to me a few days ago with a tale of meeting Galzar, the Wolf God, himself and being told to head for Harphax City so he could join the navy and fight the heathen who sacrifice people on pyramids.”

He laughed. “Further inquiries found that he had debauched his baron’s daughter. The girl’s father has sworn to kill Phelen at the first opportunity. Understand that I have seen the daughter and the baron should be amazed that as fine a man as Phelen would even look twice at her. She weighs perhaps three times what Phelen or I do.”

Noia swallowed. Someone uglier than her? What did that say about her own hopes to someday find a man who could love her? She looked at Phelen and winced. There was a lot to be said for a life of celibacy!

“The baron has been very insistent that Phelen be turned over to him, but I appealed to the High King’s judge here in Harphax City. When the judge saw the daughter, and then listened to her plea to be permitted to marry a commoner, the judge chastised the baron about not having first asked if Phelen would do the right thing. It turned out that Phelen had indeed asked for her hand as soon as he knew she was with child.

“The judge ordered that the marriage take place and the baron said he would never permit it. I had a word with the judge, who was all set to throw the baron into jail for a half moon to teach him respect the laws of the High King and suggested something else to him instead.

“He did throw the baron into jail for three days. On the first of those days the daughter and Phelen were married; since she is with child the marriage had some urgency to it. Phelen spent his wedding night and the next night with his new bride. Now, however, he’s hiding out from his irate father-in-law who will be released tomorrow.

“I would have Phelen report to you for duty, before the baron will be released from jail. Hopefully, with the deed done, some time to cool off and think about it, the baron will not be so angry. Phelen, off on sea duty, being out of sight and mind, would do his part to help the High King, while at the same time giving the baron even more time to cool off.”

Noia rocked back in her chair, thinking. The problem was that she knew what was going to happen. The ship would be outfitted with weapons and equipment over the next moon, and then they’d put to sea. There would be stops, of course, but their destination was Blassdorf, well to the south. From there, they’d be under the command of another admiral, and they could be sent to other duties even further from Harphax City. She was supposed to be returned here before the Winter Solstice, but that was a long time away.

“Men of the sea frequently are away from home for long periods, and men of the High King are frequently called away for long periods with short notice,” Noia said, not wanting to speak of the sailing schedule.

“Of course, of course. I understand that. Phelen will understand it, too. He’ll make provision that his pay will go to his new wife. I was hoping perhaps, since he would be serving you directly, you might add a small sum to his naval pay.”

“And why would I want a servant the likes of Phelen?” Noia asked.

“Well, he’s very strong, as you can see. That can be useful aboard a ship, I understand. In spite of his appearance, he is intelligent. He swears he was apprenticed to a carpenter as a boy, and he does seem to know his way around a hammer and saw.

“And of course, the last little thing is that I trust him completely, and he knows a fair number of my contacts up and down the coast of the Great Western Ocean.”

“And how would he have traveled there and back?” Noia asked.

“Like I said, he’s a very interesting fellow,” Solon told her.

“And would he have an easy time or a difficult time enlisting in the navy? I assume they have some physical standards.”

“Oh, I do believe that any of the Naval Examiners would come to the conclusion that a man who can carry two hundred pounds of grain at a time is fit. A literate man, well versed in the new numbers.”

“And, once I start back west, would he have a difficult or hard time being detached?”

“Well, if he’s as handy with a hammer and nails as he says, why he might be just the sort of person they’ll want to send on with you.”

“And I will be paying him from my own pocket?” Noia laughed at the audacity of it.

“Not much, enough for some wine, an occasional dinner not of ship rations.”

“You understand that I came away penniless? That I live on the charity of others? That until four days ago I had less money than Phelen?”

“And now?”

“And now I have some. If Phelen is willing to live on the leavings from my table, he’s going to be living on short rations and the ship’s beer.”

“We all make do, my lady, with what we have,” he told her. “Now, I suggest you return to the others before they wonder where you’ve gotten to.”

“I told them I was going shopping for a decent pistol.”

“Well, see there! You’ve come to the right place! I have just the thing! Follow me.”

He led her back to his desk, opened a drawer and pulled something out. It looked like a pistol, but was close to twice the size of a regular pistol.

“This is one of the new weapons that the High King is distributing to his officers. It is unique in many ways.”

For one thing, it had two barrels. Noia had heard of double-barreled pistols, but they were famous for not working when you needed them. This was easily the largest pistol she’d ever seen.

“What’s unique about this is that it will be used by the High King’s Marines, the High King’s soldiers who serve aboard warships, as opposed to men who sail and fight the ships.”

He pulled a long brass tube from the desk and handed it to Noia. It was brass, she thought, longer by a little, than her longest finger and nearly as big around as her thumb. It had a two flat ends, one flanged, the other crimped.

“This is the equivalent of grape shot,” he told her. “It fires six small balls, each the size of your little finger tip. There’s a wax plug in the end to keep the workings dry, then the balls, and finally the fireseed.” He reversed the cartridge and showed her the bottom. There was a dimple in the center. “That is a smaller version of the device that detonates mortar shells when fired or when landing.

“The fireseed in the shell is the smokeless variety, as well. Which is to say it produces about a tenth of the smoke as a standard pistol and the rounds carry about a third further.”

He held up another brass cartridge. This one had a wicked point on the end. “This is a standard shot. I’ve seen what it can do.” He waved at a twelve-inch post that was one of those running through the building. “If I were to shoot at a post like that, the odds are fair it would cut it in two. Fire it at a man’s stomach in this room and you’ll blow his guts out his back. Everything.” He held up both his hands clinched together. “A hole this size in his back.”

Noia blinked. “These are deadly.”

Solon smiled. “That is the good news about these. The bad news is that you’ll want to use both hands to fire it, and even then you’ll want to be careful, because they kick like an angry mule. But, as I say, the Marines aboard your ship will have these, and, I suspect, very soon, the officers as well.”

“Shell and shot?” she asked.

“I’ll send along a couple of boxes of each sort. Fifty rounds per box. There will be more that your Marines will have.”

“I have a couple of others I’d like to outfit like this,” she told him.

For the first time Solon looked a little exasperated. “I don’t have drawers of samples, my lady. I will whisper in a few ears and they will be distributed to your ship’s officers soon.”

“And how long do they take to reload? You didn’t say. Is it as fast as a regular pistol?”

Solon quickly regained his composure. “There is a lever here,” he pushed it, and the pistol broke in half and he inserted the two brass tubes into it, and pushed it back together. There was a metallic click and the pistol was ready.

Another click and it was broken again, and he pulled the two brass tubes out, and then put them back in. “It’s easier when you’re firing,” he told her. “You just dump the brass on the deck.” He smiled at her. “Oh, and the brass? You can teach a good man how to reload these in a moon quarter. Save them if you can, as the brass is expensive. Saving brass, though, isn’t worth your life. First, concentrate on staying alive.”

“That part’s easy enough to remember,” Noia told him.

“Go then and let me prepare some notes so that I can inform my friends of what you’ve told me. Please, don’t forget old Solon, on your travels!”

“With Phelen close by? I suspect it will be hard.”

“I assure you, Phelen is a gentleman, even a dandy with the ladies. The baron’s daughter isn’t the first time he’s been in trouble with a woman. Wait a moment and I will have him fetched.”

Noia smiled and followed Solon down the steps again. Again he went at a pace she found mildly unsettling, just a bit too fast for her. It was, she was sure, something he did deliberately to put his visitors on the defensive. When she thought about the reasons why that might be a good idea, she ended wondering what she could do that would serve the same purpose.

Phelen came in and bowed to her. “Lady Noia.” His voice was probably the biggest surprise in her life, since she’d looked up at her father’s palace when the bell began to toll his death.

Phelen’s voice was a rich baritone, vibrant, confident and clear. For an instant he was erect, confident and competent in appearance as he took it all in with a glance. Then came a grating nasal voice with his next words. “Whatcha wanna me call’s ya, aways from here, like?”

“I believe the phrase I keep hearing here is ‘no names,’ isn’t that right, grain merchant?”

Solon laughed. “True enough, but Lady Noia, there are times we carry these things too far. Outside these walls, making a mistake could be fatal, but here we should trust each other, eh?”

A moment later she was back in the street. Solon had given her a holster for her “pistol” and it felt awkward and uncomfortable, and she was sure everyone was looking at it and her. However, as awkward as it felt, she was pretty sure the bags of grain on Phelen’s back had felt worse.

They’d gone most of the way back to the yards when Phelen moved up next to her from his position one step behind. “Solon gave you just the one shotgun?”

Noia nodded.

“Unless the gate guards know a lot more about the High King’s secrets than I suspect, they’ll scratch their heads and pass us through without looking very closely at our weapons. They’re worried, mostly, about sailors who decide to go home early and sailors who want to bring whiskey or wine aboard a ship. Fireseed weapons might be smuggled out, but not in.”

Noia nodded and he went on, “Don’t mention you have one to anyone and when they come to distribute weapons to the officers, accept another. They make one in ten of the holsters to accommodate left-handed men, get one of those.”

“You called it a shotgun?” Noia asked him.

“Aye, Lady Noia. It’s what the High King calls it too, since it fires many shots at once. When we get a chance, you should practice. One thing you want to be careful about is never pull both triggers at once.”

“And what happens if you do?”

He smiled at her. “I get knocked on my ass. A featherweight like you? Ya’s gonna go flying out the door!”

Noia remembered the High King’s warning about flattery and her quick dismissal of its possibility in regards to herself. Evidently the High King’s concerns had been justified. It just served to steel her resolve.

Phelen watched her then spoke softly as they walked, “Today was the one and only time you can do this, Lady. The Mexicotál intelligencers marked you when you showed up at Solon’s. The last one following us is now sure that you’re returning to the yard and has turned away.

“By tomorrow, Lady, all of their intelligencers will have spent time with a drawing of you and will know you on sight and will report wherever you go and whoever you see. The word will get back to their boss, a man we don’t know, and odds are, if we’ve heard of you, he has too. He will order you killed, do you understand?”

She didn’t need to ask why; she knew full well how much was depending on her mission.

“If you know who their intelligencers are, why don’t you just arrest them?” she asked.

He grinned. “Lady, you have much to learn! I will teach you! Dead intelligencers, my lady, tell no tales. Arrested intelligencers tell very few tales. In most cases, these men are part of the local underworld and are simply told to watch or follow so-and-so and report back to their boss. Such men are lazy and easy to defeat.

“Kill them, my lady, or arrest them and they know you’re on to them. Worse, next time they will seek out a higher class of person to do their work. Higher class meaning more capable. At some point or other, they will hire men who can slip anywhere undetected. Better by far, Lady Noia, to leave the incompetents in play. The Duke of Mexico kept warning his soldiers that one day the fools who led the armies of the God-King would all be dead and the ones left would be very good indeed. Rumors abound, my lady, of a competent man, just as Lord Tuck surmised, who is now their king.”

A very great deal for her to think about! And then, just to prove she had no idea, both Trilium and Tanda Sa were less than enthused that she’d added a third person to her entourage without consulting them. Captain Amby was even less pleased.

II

Tanda Havra contemplated her son, as Lady Inisa once again was changing him. The news from Tecpan was unsettling. The news from Baytown was unsettling. She’d talked about it with Tuck the night before and he had made her concerns worse, not less.

“Tanda, sometimes the timing of a deed can have as much impact as the deed itself. If tomorrow, a Ruthani discovered fireseed independently of Styphon or the High King, everyone would yawn. Whereas the High King and that nameless priest of Styphon had impacts far greater than most men.

“If there came a time when things were looking bad, if someone killed one or both of us and John...it would go a long ways towards unnerving the people. It could mean the difference between victory and defeat in the final battle. Now...now, it just might make everyone angry and show that Xyl isn’t that much different than the old priests.”

“Anyone who comes after either of us better be swift and sure, for if they are not successful, what happens will be very unpleasant. And if they come for John–they will feel wrath like that the gods wreck on mortals, for I have told my family to avenge me,” Tanda told her husband.

Tuck nodded, knowing she wasn’t talking about Manistewa. Lion had many strong sons, not a few strong daughters, and they would track down those responsible and after that...well, the Ruthani were pragmatists. If you talked quickly, you’d die quickly. But you would talk.

“Speaking of your family, I understand that Lydia and Judy are sending you Puma.”

“Yes, Shuria likes her, which is no small compliment. She should be here after High Sun today.”

“And I have to talk to one of the Sixth Mounted’s officers, who has a penchant for blowing things up. I can’t believe I haven’t remembered this before.”

“Remembered what?”

“Two weapons from the war I fought in. They aren’t complicated. I’d be concerned if we were going to be on the attack anytime soon, but I don’t see that this time. Five to one odds against, I can deal with, with ambushes and surprise attacks. Standing my forty or fifty thousand men in a field and letting them bang away at the quarter million coming at them...that’s not something I want to see.

“So, we dig trenches, and we’ll add these two weapons.”

“Are they so secret you can’t tell your wife?” she asking, grinning.

“No. One is called a mine. They come in a variety of types, but for right now, we’ll stick with the ones called ‘claymores.’ They consist of a curved plate of steel, with lips on the top, bottom and sides, then a layer of smokeless fireseed, then a mess of lead balls, covered with a thin layer of copper. There’s a spring-loaded striker to set it off, and I suppose we can make some fused versions. Basically, you set it up with copper side facing the enemy, wait until they get close and set it off.”

“A little like a shotgun, then,” she told him.

“A little. They aren’t very big, and they aren’t very expensive to make and they’re fairly simple to use, so long as the soldier can remember the difference between iron and copper. Plus, it’ll be curved and that will help.”

“And the other weapon?”

“A flying bomb,” he said baldly. “Again, a simple device, but somewhat more difficult in practice to make. It consists of a tube filled with regular fireseed, and a big fat round head with an explosive charge. Wrapped with either lead balls or another steel plate and filled with our best explosives.

“These are light enough for a single man to carry and fire. They are only good for about fifty yards and would be mainly of use if we have to fall back to the city. A single hit with one of these rockets will disable an artillery piece, or penetrate a thin wall someone is hiding behind. It’s a close in and direct weapon, like a combination of a mortar and cannon.”

“Tuck, wouldn’t the person who fires it have to stand in plain sight to do so?”

Tuck nodded soberly. Tanda winced. There would be many young rocket men, many bold rocket men. And, as Tuck had said once about something else, there would be no old, bold rocket men.

A messenger came in to report that a woman named Puma had arrived, claiming to have an appointment with Tanda. Tanda nodded. “Send her to the conference room, I’ll see her there.”

Tanda stood, smiled at Lady Inisa and went down the hallway, the messenger trailing along behind her. She stopped and faced the man. He was of middle years, a little pudgy, his hair starting to go.

“I’ll see Puma alone,” she told the man.

“My lady! After what happened to Captain Legios, that wouldn’t be wise! Do you know who she is?”

Tanda Havra laughed. “She’s my sister. Now please, I wish to talk to my sister in private.”

The man stood up to her. “I was told you have no brothers and sisters!”

“Well, someone told you very wrong. Forty-two, I believe. She is one of the daughters of the Lion of the Ruthani.”

He blinked. “Oh!”

“That’s okay,” she said pleasantly. “It’s good to be concerned, but now, be someplace else.”

He nodded, a sheepish look on his face.

She went inside to find Puma eating a piece of fruit from a tray that had been brought. The young woman looked at her and spoke softly. “Sister, I asked a servant for this tray of fruit. It was a long trail.”

“You chased down Maya with Shuria and then came straight here! I imagine it was long indeed.”

“Dusty, too. Sister, I have come to respect Lady Lydia and, above all, Lady Judy. To know that such things are possible–my heart sings and my feet skip along the paths I have to take.”

“Speaking of paths, perhaps it was fortunate that you went with Shuria after Maya. Those are your choices, sister. Scouting and such things with Shuria and the others of the Ruthani, doing those things we Ruthani do best, or help me in the ways Lady Lydia showed you.”

“The last, sister. I have been shown a path that I never imagined was possible. To walk the halls of a palace like this one and have people bow and call me ‘Lady Puma.’ To have dukes, counts and the important men of the villages nod in respect after they listen to what I have to say.”

Tanda listened to that and sighed. “Puma, would you like the good news or the bad news if you choose that path?”

“The bad news, sister!”

“Well, it’s pretty bad. Half of those people will be plotting behind your back to pull you down, so that they may have your place. Half of the rest have the brains of a prairie squirrel! The last quarter–those are the ones worthy of your respect and they’ll only respect you if you deserve it.”

“It isn’t that much different in the villages,” Puma replied, her chin high. “You know the petty jealousies and the preening and bragging.”

“Yes, I do. However, when kingdoms and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people are affected by the outcomes of your actions, you will find that it is quite different than trying to be the next harvest maiden.”

“And what of the good news?”

Tanda rocked back in her chair and smiled. “Two and a half years ago, I was the woman in Mogdai who gathered various herbs and remedies, mostly for women. I hunted as well, particularly in lean times. I wasn’t a lady; I wasn’t a duchess. I was a simple woman of the village.

“Then I met Tuck and his young students. That’s what they were, and in truth Tuck wasn’t even their teacher–he raised horses on a piece of land you could throw a rock across. He wasn’t a lord or a duke. Judy, Lydia and Becky weren’t countesses or ladies and Elspeth wasn’t a queen.

“You’re right. If you do your duty, if you’re smart, brave and lucky, you too can be what you dream. Because, Puma, if you agree to this path, you can style yourself ‘Lady Puma’ from this moment forward. You will be working with the powers of Xipototec. Not just Tuck and myself, but the also with members of the Duke’s Council and the Army Council. You will go among the women of Xipototec as Lady Lydia has done, dispensing advice, helping them organize.

“You will need to spend some time with Tuck, who knows a good many things about such things.”

“Then, sister, that is what I want to do. Lady Puma!” Puma clapped her hands in glee.

“Before you go giddy with delight, understand that lords and ladies are people. Your night soil stinks, you piss sitting down, as all women do. Not all of the jobs you will have will make you feel like skipping.

“Lady Inisa is the woman who takes care of my son, when I have to work. In truth, keeping a baby clean is something I’m pleased to delegate to someone else, and my husband is even more pleased to avoid the task.

“Queen Elspeth and King Freidal recommended Inisa to Tuck and me. However, there is a problem that vexes me.

“In the lands of the Hostigi and Zarthan, younger sons and daughters of nobles may be ‘fostered’ in another noble’s household. In Lady Inisa’s case she was fostered to the household of the Count of the Central Valley, Xitki Quillan. From the time she was six summers or so, she has lived with Count Quillan.

“Back home, her father was an adherent of foul Styphon, as were her two older brothers. Then, perhaps five years before the war, when Lady Inisa was sixteen summers, her father, the baron, died. Her oldest brother become baron in his place and continued to do the bidding of Styphon.

“When the war started, her brothers were both in Baytown, working to further Styphon’s machinations. They must have known of the plot against the king and became afraid. They fled to Styphon’s temple farm in South March and after the plot was revealed, they were arrested.

“There was no doubt as to their guilt. Alros had them shot out of hand and their lands were confiscated.”

“And you let this woman near your son?” Puma was appalled.

“She came with the highest recommendations, she has served us nearly a year now, without a hint of trouble. Now Legios has been nearly killed and may still die, although as of this morning he was reported to be better. Then there was a recent incident in Baytown, where King Freidal’s personal servant, a man who had been at his side since he was a small boy, plotted against Queen Elspeth and led an assassin to stand a dozen paces away from her. Freidal saw the pistol and stepped in front of Elspeth.”

Tanda laughed bitterly and shook her head in amazement. “I do not understand how Freidal survives. Tuck has shot him twice in the head. Freidal has also been nearly as gravely wounded as Legios; no one thought he’d survive.

“This time Freidal was merely bruised and Elspeth was angry. Nonetheless, this servant of the King of Zarthan committed suicide right in front of them.”

“Who can you trust?” Puma whispered, awestruck.

“No one, not really, not even if you’ve lived and worked with them for years. I trust Tuck; I trust Judy, Lydia, Becky and Elspeth. King Freidal, the High King, Count Errock, Count Quillan, Brigadier Denethon and Alros, sister to Freidal. Once there were more, many more. But now I find that I have to be sure, because too much is at stake.

“One of your first duties will be to go among the children of Xipototec. Not the very young, but the thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds. Tuck will give you an order authorizing you to form a ‘Special Intelligence Unit’ whose real purpose is to be a deep, deep secret: they will scout our enemies here in Xipototec by following people we have suspicions about. They will keep a record of where those people go and who they talk to, even if it’s nodding to someone they know in the street.”

Puma smiled. “We used to play a game like that in the village! We would hide and follow an adult. If they saw you, they would throw rocks at you! You quickly learned not to be seen!”

“My friend, Tazi, played that game at Mogdai. She was never hit by a rock.”

Puma bowed her head but Tanda shrugged. “Puma, people die every day. In war, death comes sooner for so very, very many! War is capricious; you never know who it will take or who it will spare. At the end of the war, those of us who live mourn those who die, but then we are faced with being alive and that we have duties that have to be fulfilled for family, friends and, of course, Hostigos.”

“Can you do this, Puma?”

“Yes, sister. I can do this. I swear!”

“Then I will take you to Brigadier Andromoth. He will see to getting you set up. We’ll assign you a veteran sergeant, one of those who once worked with Countess Judy’s Field Intelligence Company. He will be your go-between between you and Andromoth. Tomorrow, early, we’ll introduce you to the Duke’s Council. I’ve been acting as secretary. Now, like Lydia, you will take over that job. Also for the Army Council. Come, Lady Puma! Let’s get you started on that path!”

They stood up. Puma felt ten feet tall, able to deal with one of the great cats with a simple swipe of her hand. Life was good!

III

Judy entered the cell where Maya was being held. They had been rough with her, stripping her bare, with only a foul-smelling bucket for personal needs.

Maya was chained hand and foot and, while the chains were padded, they still wore hard on her wrists and ankles.

Judy stopped ten feet away from the woman. Even leaning forward, Maya’s spittle fell just short.

“You aren’t like most of those we catch,” Judy said calmly, ignoring the outburst. “Most of them simply kill themselves. That’s an odd thing, at least for me. If I was taken prisoner, I would dream of escape, I would dream of frustrating my captors.”

“I know it’s not possible,” Maya said, spitting again. “So, let’s get on with it. I’d rather be dead than living like this any longer.”

Judy ignored her. “The more I thought about it, I realized that they would only protect the most important plotters and that must mean you are a little fish. Someone we should just knock on the head and dump in a pit of the nameless dead.

“But we have our rules for justice here. Legios said you were plotting to betray Mexico, but we have no proof beyond his word. You certainly did stab him, but that’s not the same as high treason. You didn’t even kill him, you know.”

“Impossible! No one survives such a blow!”

“Well, perhaps that’s true for those of you who pray to your insanely blood-thirsty gods, but it’s not true for those of us who pray to Galzar. The High King and now Lord Tuck, Queen Elspeth and others, including myself, have helped make such wounds serious, but not necessarily fatal. So, we wait to find out if you are indeed a murderer or not.”

Maya sniffed in derision. “I will tell you nothing.”

“You already have. You’re familiar with stab wounds, although only to a small degree. Legios fooled you, you know. He sank to his knees and curled up, leaving the dagger in place. That was so he wouldn’t bleed to death. He knew his friends would come looking for him, and, sure enough, his best friend did find him. Baron Hollar.”

“Legios only dreamed of being noble someday! He aped his betters! He would never have been permitted to rise above his place!” Maya exclaimed.

“Well, he started off higher than I did, so maybe you’re wrong. This isn’t the God-King’s kingdom. Even before the High King, capable men, soldiers mostly, could rise above their station. Legios started higher than Queen Elspeth as well. Deeds, Maya, deeds are the currency of the High King’s realm!”

Maya spat at Judy again.

“That looks like thirsty work,” Judy said with a shrug. “There’s someone who wants to talk with you for a while. He has a tub of water. You’ll be able to have your fill.”

She nodded to one of the guards, who opened the cell door. Sergeant Hollar and two Heavy Weapons Company privates came in. The privates were carrying a large tub between them, half full of water. Sergeant Hollar had a large pail of water in each hand as well. He waved at the privates to put the tub down, then poured his pails in, bringing the water level close to the top.

“I’m going to leave now,” Judy told Maya. “I’m uncomfortable with watching something like this.”

“Coward! Weakling!”

“Perhaps. However, I didn’t have a problem ordering it. Legios was my friend. Have a nice afternoon, Maya.”

Judy turned and walked outside. She heard the first scream before she had left the cell area. She resolutely kept on walking.

IV

Gryllos looked up and saw the countess standing a few feet away from where he was sitting on the rail of the headquarters building, watching the Heavy Weapons Company set up their mortars. For the first palm width he’d had questions every few heartbeats; now he just watched silently as the men went through their routines for the third time.

He bowed slightly to the countess and turned back to Big Mortar. “The men show the same intensity the third time as the first. I would have thought they’d have tired or gotten bored.”

Big Mortar nodded. “Captain, at Three Hills, we moved twice during the day of the main battle, not counting our initial deployment the night before into our original position. There has never been a better example of the importance of harassing fire. After running a mile, the soldiers of the God-King began to tire; they were out of artillery range, not to mention beyond rifle fire. Hestophes didn’t want them to stop or catch their breaths. So we moved our mortars forward two miles in two finger widths, set up and commenced again.

“Captain, those men were still running when they got to their main camp, five miles on.”

The countess moved up and stood on Gryllos’ other side. “It seems to be going well, Captain.”

“Yes, Countess Judy, very well. The soldiers of the Sixth Mounted are the best soldiers in the army of Hostigos, or at least so I thought until I saw these men. Now I understand why we win, time and again. Our soldiers know what they are doing, they are eager to do it and, above all, they do it very, very well.”

“Well said, Captain!” She nodded back towards the city. “I stopped to see Captain Legios on the way here. He still lives. The shock has worn off and the wound is painful, so the priests of Galzar are giving him something to make him sleep. But the wound isn’t hot to the touch and Captain Legios has only a mild fever. The priests are very clear: if they can control the fever, Captain Legios will live.”

Gryllos turned to Big Mortar. “Lieutenant, have them halt, announce the news about Captain Legios, and then tell them to knock off for the rest of the day.”

“It’s still early, Captain. We were going to have pistol and rifle practice shortly.”

Gryllos had seen the message in Captain Legios’ files. Evidently the captain hadn’t shared it with his lieutenants. Gryllos thought that odd, but decided that there had to have been a reason for it.

“Lieutenant, cancel the firing practice for today. I want the company formed up at first light tomorrow, with day packs, no rifles and no personal weapons, except their issue pistols.”

“Only about half the men have issue pistols, sir.”

“I understand. This is for you and your brother’s ears only, Lieutenant, but tomorrow everyone will get a replacement for their pistols. Tomorrow at sunset, Lieutenant, were you to parade the company for field duty, you will not find one personal or issue pistol from today.”

Big Mortar looked surprised. “I don’t know about that, Captain. A lot of the men are comfortable with their own weapons.”

Lady Judy smiled. “We didn’t want the word to get out early, Lieutenant, and I asked Captain Legios not to mention it.” She waved at the men. “I want to talk to the captain, Lieutenant. Get the men dismissed and tell them about Legios.”

The big man saluted formally, turned and went down the steps into the parade ground and started yelling orders.

Gryllos turned and led the way into his office.

“Jumper came with your message, Captain. What’s the problem?”

Gryllos grimaced. “I don’t think you can say it’s a problem, Countess. It’s an embarrassment of riches. I know it’s only been a few days, but it’s clear that the Mortar brothers have no business being company lieutenants. They should have companies of their own.”

He spoke fast, not wanting to give her a chance to speak at first. “Those are two of the finest officers of any rank that I have ever served with. The three of them, Legios and the brothers, were friends. I understand that and I understand why you didn’t give the Heavy Weapons Company to either man. It might have seemed a vote of no confidence in the other.”

“That’s right, Captain. We’d planned on giving you their services for a moon, then reassigning them.”

“Lady Judy, the junior lieutenants know their jobs quite well. The next newest officer in the company has been here more than a year. They are quite blunt about what happens to officers who don’t measure up.”

“That’s true enough. If I understand the thrust of your comments, then, it’s that you believe they should be reassigned now, rather than later.”

“Countess, we aren’t likely to see action for a moon or more. In that time we can bring in two new junior lieutenants and train them to a degree. The brothers would have had time to get settled into their commands as well.”

“If we have a moon,” Lady Judy mused. She looked him in the eye. “You realize that even if I come here and praise those two to the sun, the moon and the stars, if the duke came–even, I suspect, if the High King came and told the men of the Heavy Weapons Company of his confidence in you, the rest of your men would still blame you for their departure.”

“Soldiers, Countess, complain even if there is nothing to complain about. I’ve been going through the war plans. At some point, favored status or not, they’re going to be set to work with shovels. They are purely going to hate that. If we time it right, if I get down and dig alongside them, as well as the other officers and NCOs, when we get done with our turn at the shovels, I think they’ll start complaining about something else entirely.”

The countess grinned. “I will send a nice little message to Brigadier Markos and a copy to Duke Tuck and the High King, saying that you are doing a fine job and that the brigadier should take a great deal of pride in the quality of the officers he trains.”

She stood up. “I will speak to Count Gamelin. He’s my military deputy and will issue the orders for the Mortar brothers. Tomorrow evening?”

“Yes, Countess, tomorrow evening. We’re going to do a training march tomorrow in conjunction with the other thing. It will be interesting.”

Lady Judy laughed. “Surely Lieutenant Smyla told you not to get involved in trying to out-march the Heavy Weapons Company?”

“Indeed he did, Countess. I will be careful not to wager too much.”

She waved a salute and left.

Gryllos turned back to Captain Legios’ files, bringing himself up to date on the status of the company. That evening he joined the men at the evening mess. The food was better than he’d expected and served in huge quantities. Considering that the average soldier in the company was lean, stringy muscle, told Gryllos a lot about what these men did on an average day.

Jumper had spent most of the day in one class or another and returned to the company shortly after the evening meal. Gryllos checked, and, sure enough, he’d eaten in Tecpan with some of the Ruthani scouts.

Later, he had an officer’s call for the company officers, all eight of them, including the Mortar brothers, four company lieutenants and his two aides.

“I will be blunt,” Gryllos told them. “We talk too much, me included. At the Wagon Box Fight, I told anyone who wanted to listen what my plan was. By the grace of Galzar, none of them were intelligencers. But, now we know–there are intelligencers among us and they mean us no good, none.”

He could see the seething rage on the faces of all of the officers. So he told them some news they’d want to hear. “Still, we are officers of the High King and the Duke of Mexico, we have to talk about what we are going to do. We just have to be careful we who talk to about things that we are going to do.

“I invited Sergeant Hollar to this meeting; he was unable to come because, by the order of the countess, he’s chatting with the woman who stabbed Captain Legios. I’m told that she broke in a finger width and is now relating everything about her life that Sergeant Hollar might find even a little interesting.”

There were nervous chuckles.

“Tomorrow morning, at first light, we will form up the company. Our men been told field packs for the day, with issue pistols but no private weapons.

“This is because tomorrow we will be the first company in Tecpan issued new personal weapons. There will be a group of a half dozen wagons that will accompany us as we march out. Those wagons are loaded with weapons and ammunition, plus food and water for the wagoners and their horses.

“We won’t be back to the barracks until shortly after sunset. Do not tell your troops when they will be back. All they need to know is that we’re going out.”

“Where will we be going, Captain?” the hapless senior aide asked.

Big Mortar laughed and clapped the young man on the back; probably, Gryllos thought, nearly dislocating the youth’s shoulder. “Junior Lieutenant! Your captain just told you that we’re not going to talk about things except what you need to know. All the men will need are field packs and without their personal weapons or their rifles. What’s hard about that?”

Gryllos smiled at the young man. “I’ve heard it told that Duke Tuck was the one who introduced the idea that the most junior man at a council of war should start the critique of the plan. Part of that is to teach young officers when to speak up and when not to.”

The young lieutenant nodded vigorously.

Gryllos went on, “When I was in the High King’s school for officers, on my second day, I raised my hand and asked our sergeant how far we were going to march that day. He wasn’t as large as Big Mortar, but he was large enough. He laughed at me, Lieutenant. ‘I’ll tell you exactly how far you’re going to march pipsqueak: twice as far as these other men, because when we get back, my corporal will see you do it again!’”

“My kind of sergeant,” Big Mortar said and everyone in the room laughed.

“It is exasperating, it is frustrating, it makes you think that no one wants to hear your opinion on how to do things,” Gryllos went on. “And this applies not just to young lieutenants, but to all of us. We will just have to shrug and bear it. The countess knows a lot we don’t. Duke Tuck, I suspect, keeps secrets from her. I’m sure the High King has his own secrets. Adjust! If dukes and countesses have to wait until they need to know, so will you!”

Jumper woke him well before dawn and Gryllos prepared carefully for the day. Gryllos stood in front of the company just as the sun started to push over the horizon. Gryllos used his deepest voice. “Men! Today, we’ll be replacing your issue pistols! I realize I’m new, but I’ve seen these weapons in action! You can bring your personal pistol along, but the next time you’re in the field you’ll be kicking yourself, wondering why you’re carrying such a useless horse turd.

“One last time. You may bring your no personal pistols. I promise that you will curse your pistol’s weight before you return if you bring them. You are all dismissed back to the barracks for a finger width.”

There were a few men who moved a little faster than others, but everyone moved. Short Mortar, evidently, had the “Captain Gryllos” duty today, as he was close to hand. “That was a fine thing, Captain, sending them all back.”

“I’m a fine officer, Lieutenant Mortar, as are you.” The two traded glances and both laughed.

At the morning halt, one of the company lieutenants, Hypax, asked Gryllos a question. “I’m not trying to learn any secrets, Captain, but I have a question. Why didn’t we exchange weapons back at the post, then travel to the range?”

Short Mortar laughed. “We passed the range before the sun was full up!”

“I mean...” the man started to speak, but Gryllos waved him to silence.

“I know what you mean. Why are you out here, Lieutenant?”

“You ordered us here, Captain.”

“Exactly. Now, you could believe it was my whim that dragged a logistos and his assistant, along with a dozen men, six wagons and teams that would have had to be loaded and harnessed before dawn. Or perhaps, like you and they, I’m here because I was told to be here.” 

“I meant no offense, Captain.”

“And none taken, Lieutenant. Since it was the countess who ordered this personally, I suspect she wants to impress us with the fact that we’re not supposed to brag about our new weapons as soon as we get back to Tecpan. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve seen these in action. I would dearly love to look on the faces of some poor cavalry regiment who tried to ride over us.”

“A regiment?” Short Mortar asked.

“A regiment. A thousand men. We’d have to wait until they were in long pistol shot, but we’d get four volleys in before they closed, but unless they are foolishly brave, they’d never get close at all.”

“Captain, four hundred men, four volleys. That’s sixteen hundred rounds. It would hurt a cavalry regiment, but it wouldn’t stop it,” Short Mortar said. “Not in a charge.”

“Times six, Short,” Gryllos told him. “Times six. Ten thousand rounds, more or less. And it would more than hurt. Think grapeshot in a personal weapon,” he told them.

“Four volleys of grape?” asked Big.

“At least. If they slowed, perhaps six or eight. The downside, of course, is that the weapon isn’t accurate and not very dangerous at distances beyond pistol shot.”

“But they’re pistols?” one of the other officers insisted.

“They’re not much larger than a double-barreled pistol,” Gryllos told him. He waved at the wagon. “I might add that Duke Tuck decided that they should be carried like his pistols: in a leather holder on our belts.”

“And if a man carried more than one pistol?” Big Mortar asked. “He could carry more of these weapons?”

“Aye. They’re called ‘shotguns’ because they fire many shots at once. There are two triggers, one for each barrel.”

“How could a man reload once, before cavalry rode over him,” Short asked, “much less four times?”

“You’ll see,” Gryllos promised. “If you’ve heard how the duke loads his pistol, you’ll know the answer.”

Gryllos had heard that the Heavy Weapons Company had adopted their strange, new artillery weapons with eagerness. That certainly was how they adapted to their shotguns. Showing the ruin a shotgun produced on a dummy with tomatoes strategically placed to leak “blood” was striking. Mentioning that if Captain Legios had been carrying something like this, he’d have ruined Maya’s day, didn’t hurt either.

On the march home Gryllos had the officers and NCOs relax the march discipline and just let the men walk in a relaxed formation. Jumper had assured him that the Ruthani scouts were out there, even if they were unseen, so he wasn’t worried about an ambush.

When they got back to their barracks, he dismissed all of the officers except the Mortar brothers, asking them to come to his office.

Sure enough, Countess Judy and Count Gamelin were there.

Big Mortar stopped and Short Mortar growled something under his breath.

Big laughed bitterly, “I told you they weren’t going to stay stupid forever, little brother.”

“I never wanted to be an officer,” Short said, facing Lady Judy. “Big did, but he’s the one who does big things.”

“I know. I never expected to be a countess, either. Then came Tarr-Dombra where I came face to face with death and duty. Duty won.”

Big Mortar bobbed his head. “We knew it was going to happen, we just hoped it would be a long, long time from now.”

Count Gamelin smiled thinly. “You couldn’t have done that, because you’d have had to slack your duty.”

“No,” Short replied, “we couldn’t do that.”

“So, tomorrow you may have the first palm width of the duty day to say goodbye to your troops. Big, you’ll be assigned to a new Mexicotál mortar company that’s forming up here in Tecpan. Short, you’re going to Xipototec to command the Duke’s Own Mortar Company.”

Short looked at Captain Gryllos. “You will never win the mortar competition! Never!”

Gryllos grinned. “The duke may or may not use sorcery himself, but teaching it to lieutenants in a mortar company? I think not! No, simple mechanic arts, as our High King says. We will figure them out and then beat you handily!”

There were chuckles, handshakes, and later, Gryllos sat once again on the rail of the headquarters building. It was late and even the dust of the earlier activities had died away. Jumper silently appeared and sat next to him.

After a few finger widths, Jumper spoke, although he wasn’t looking at Gryllos. “My grandfather told me that soldiering was hard, that there would be many hard days, followed by many hard nights. That it would not be often that I would be able to look at something I did, something I myself did, and say ‘that made a difference.’” the young man paused, then added, “I can’t say that about today, either. But Captain! Such fine weapons! With these, we will be able to slay many of the southerners!”

“I sure hope so,” Gryllos whispered.

He’d already done the math. If everyone in the army of Mexico was armed as they were, and if the shotguns worked at rifle ranges, instead of pistol shot, and if King Xyl thoughtfully lined up all of his soldiers to attack, it would take a day of firing their shotguns every few heartbeats to destroy Xyl’s army. Since that wasn’t going to happen, it would be better to forget it. This was one thing; one more thing that would help. They were going to need a lot more help!


	15. Emissaries

I

Tanda looked up and saw one of the priests of Galzar Wolf’s Head standing in the entrance to her office. “Please, Tanda Havra, may I have a word with you?”

She shrugged. “You’d do better talking to the duke.”

He shook his head, contradicting her. “I wasn’t hoping for understanding, just someone who would listen. The duke might do something unfortunate and that wouldn’t do at all. Please, I want you to hear what I have to say. It isn’t important whether or not you agree, but that you will convey my words to the duke, and eventually to the High King himself...once I’m on the way.”

“On your way where?” Tanda asked, her eyes narrowing.

“King Xyl in Tenosh has asked for a chaplain of Galzar for himself and others and for us to teach the way of Galzar to his soldiers.”

“And you’re the one going, eh? The sacrificial goat, to see if he’s being honest?”

He shrugged. “My lady, he has talked to several of our under priests, men captured in the war. You will recall that it was considered something of a marvel at the time that they were willing to trade prisoners.”

“Instead of cutting their hearts out? Tuck and I always thought that was because we had thousands of their men prisoner and they had dozens of ours.”

“King Xyl assured our under priests at the time that it was on his personal command that there were no sacrifices.”

“Okay, you’re going off to teach the soldiers of King Xyl how to behave like proper soldiers. Why do you think that the duke would have a problem with that?”

“Because, my lady, from the early days of Kalvan, from the days when he was that and nothing more, we knew the perfidy that was Styphon. We knew that Styphon’s priests desired to end the worship of all gods but their own. So we stopped being neutral in the wars of men and sided with Hostigos and Kalvan against Styphon and those who supported the false god.

“When it became clear that the God-King was going to make war on us, combined with the remnants of Styphon, again we gave up our neutrality to fight the common enemies of us all. Even after Styphon was stamped out in Zarthan, we kept aiding the High King and his soldiers. We weren’t neutral in the war against the God-King.”

Tanda regarded him. Priests! What can you say about men who believe they have the ear of their god? Or who believe their gods speak to them?

“You’re saying that if King Xyl is not lying, then the priests of Galzar will resume their neutrality?” she asked, wanting it to be clear.

“Yes, Lady Tanda, that’s exactly what I mean.”

She sat thinking for a few moments. “Uncle Wolf, this is a personal question. Do you think I am an honorable person?”

He bobbed his head. “More honorable than most!”

“Then, please listen to what I have to say. I understand the beliefs of those who follow Galzar. You have been traditionally neutral on the battlefield, exhorting men to keep to the faith of Galzar, follow his Way and thus live according to some principles when it comes to the conduct of war. This is no small thing and kings, princes, dukes, and even village herbalists know this.

“I will not argue with you about King Xyl’s intentions; to be honest, I’ve not heard even one dishonorable word about the man except that he opposes us. It’s not as though we didn’t kill the priests, nobles and the soldiers of the God-King ourselves whenever we had the chance!

“But they have a tradition down south of submission to the will of their gods. Maybe this will help you, maybe it won’t. Look in me in the eye and tell me honestly that new gods don’t come along, changing the balance of power among the various priesthoods?”

“It doesn’t happen as often as it used to,” Uncle Wolf told her. It was clear he knew it was a weak reply.

“But it does happen. Uncle Wolf, the people of the Heartlands south of us have had their world ripped asunder. The God-King is dead, his priests are dead, and the sacrifices that have gone on for millennia are ended. In a way, I think those sacrifices, as terrible as they were, might have been part of the glue that held their social fabric together.

“Now, Uncle Wolf, there is a vacuum. King Xyl’s reaching out to you might sound reasonable, but to me it’s a sign of desperation. He thinks his people need to have something to believe in.”

Uncle Wolf bobbed his head. “That is so, Lady Tanda. They want a priest of Dralm and priestess of Yrtta All-mother to accompany me.”

“Have you then consulted with Father Endymion of Dralm and Mother Sirta of Yrtta before you agreed to this?”

The priest again bobbed his head in agreement, leaving Tanda to shake her head in wonder at the denseness of the priesthood. Because if they weren’t stupid they were foolishly brave.

“Uncle Wolf, if there is a vacuum they will be grasping at straws. Uncle, when a straw doesn’t support a drowning man, he pushes it aside and grasps at another, heedless of the straw that failed.”

He bowed his head. “My lady, you are truly wise, but we are not totally stupid. Right now, though, we are more concerned about the reaction of the High King, of the duke...than about the welcome we will receive in Tenosh.”

“My husband is a pious man, priest. He will let you go and will not call it treason, nor will he let anyone else do so. If you come to ruin, though, he will not lift his smallest finger to help you.”

“We never imagined he would,” Uncle Wolf said, shaking his head. “I am sorry, Lady Tanda, but we are going to do this. We have discussed this for some days now, among ourselves and have agreed on our course of action.”

Tanda wanted to tear her hair out. They had talked for days about a contact with the enemy of the High King? They had talked for days with the man who had marched two million men into striking distance of the cities of Mexico, and who had already surrounded and besieged one?

“Who among you will go south?” Tanda asked him directly.

“I will, as will Endymion of Dralm and Sirta of Yrtta All-Mother.”

“You may proceed. You will not have our blessing, but while in our lands, we will protect you. Once in King Xyl’s lands, your safety will be in his hands.”

When the priest started to speak, Tanda waved her hand, silencing him. “It is better not to speak of the details. Not all may have the same opinion as my husband or I.”

He bowed and left, and Tanda turned slightly to let Puma crawl out from under her desk. She’d had no warning about the meeting, and didn’t want to hold it by herself. Now she waved at the door. “Please, Lady Puma, if you would, would you tell Tuck and Brigadier Andromoth that I would like to see them.”

The younger woman bobbed her head and was out the door at once. It didn’t take long for the four of them to meet. Tanda explained what had been said.

Tuck looked at her and sighed. “The best outcome we could have hoped for, given the situation.”

“Yes,” she said bluntly. “I don’t think it would be wise to look for who King Xyl’s intermediary is in Xipototec though. At least not by investigating Uncle Wolf. Lady Puma, that includes the other priests as well.”

Puma bobbed her head, planning on having her eyes watching them before dawn.

Tanda grinned. “No, Puma, I mean it. Don’t watch them. We can’t afford an incident with the regular priesthood.”

“No,” Tuck agreed instantly. “That could cause a foul brew! We will just have to continue our investigations as they are.”

“I didn’t bring it up with Uncle Wolf, but if there is a religious vacuum in Tenosh, it’s not to our benefit in the long run. He and the others, if successful, could help tip the balance in our favor,” Tanda hypothesized.

Tuck shuddered. “No. Religious wars aren’t good, they never are. And we both know what will happen if two hundred million Heartlanders decide to turn evangelical. Still, you are right; there’s not much we can do to stop them, without risking a major break with people we can’t afford to have a break with.”

He turned brisk. “Another item for our agenda is that I’ll send the High King a special code message, and tell him to have that fellow Mytron who has been working on codes, to come up with something extra special for the next one, and swap to it as soon as possible. Something really different.”

Tanda looked at him in surprise. “Who could possibly be reading our messages?”

“In my time, many of our kings thought just that, that their messages were unreadable by anyone else. My people in particular, took full advantage of their arrogance, because we are very inventive and read most of what they had to say.”

II

The meeting was of Captain Amby’s officers, held on the main deck of their ship. Workmen were still busy hammering and sawing; there were shouts and calls of men working the cranes and pulleys loading stores aboard.

“We’ve worked together now for nearly two moons. I told you on the first day that I would choose my officers and so it has been. What I was not clear about was that when it came time to sail I would adjust my officers in their duties.

“Lieutenant Stavron, you are my Sixth Officer.”

“Sir!”

“And you stay Sixth officer, in charge of the fourth watch and the mortars.”

“Yes, sir!” The man who was the youngest of them all, except for Noia, looked ecstatic.

“Lieutenant Noia, you stand relieved of your duties as fifth officer.”

A lifetime of preparation couldn’t have prepared her for the body blow. It sucked her wind away, leaving her breathless and dizzy. More than one voice was raised in protest.

“Hush!” Captain Amby told them.

“Lieutenant Sharpion, you were Fourth Officer. You, sir, stand relieved of those duties. As of now you are my Third Officer, commanding the second watch and the starboard main battery.”

“Sir!” the young lieutenant said with enthusiasm.

“Lieutenant Vashon, you were Third Officer, now you are Second Officer and command the first watch and the port side main battery.”

“Sir,” the man said, with little enthusiasm. For a moment there, he’d seen the same ruin as Noia had, another appointed in his place.

“Lieutenant Hosh, you sir, stand relieved as Second Officer. Sir, your work has been inadequate, but not incompetent. It is my judgment that you should be given another chance. Sir, you are appointed Fifth officer, commanding the third watch, and the fore deck during battle.”

This time another paled as Noia had. “Sir,” Lieutenant Hosh said, his voice more a gargle than confident.

“Lieutenant Butreus, you sir, stand relieved as First Officer. You are required to report forthwith to the admiral.” Captain Amby paused and seeing the consternation on the other’s face, then quickly went on. “There you will be promoted captain and given command of Hull Seven-three.”

There are slaps in the face and claps on the back, Noia thought.

“Lieutenant Noia is promoted lieutenant commander and is First Officer.”

The simple announcement took everyone by surprise, including Noia.

“At my request, Tanda Sa, of the Ruthani, is promoted Fourth Officer.”

Out of nowhere, Tanda Sa appeared and saluted his captain and took a seat with the others.

Captain Butreus saluted Captain Amby and went to his cabin to gather his things.

Captain Amby looked at his officers for a few moments. “One thing it is given to captains of new ships is to suggest a name for their ship. It has to be approved by the admiral and the High King, either of whom can command a name of their own choosing. I’m pleased to say that they have agreed with me. This is now the King’s ship _Three Hills_.

“As you know, for a long time I was a gun commander under General Count Alkides, then, after Three Hills, a battery commander. With the exception of Commander Noia, few of you have much sea experience, and she has none with a ship that can sail into the wind.

“Surely, we’ve all read the reports of those who’ve gone before and we’ve sailed on such vessels. I hope none of you think that a few days experience under sail in a harbor, however large, is going to suffice.”

There were headshakes from all the officers, including Noia. Of all of them, she was aware that she actually had it harder, because she had years of experience of how things worked–on ships quite different than these. It would be interesting to see which was better: natural ability or some training, even if it had been the wrong training.

“Now, one thing you haven’t imagined or expected. In a palm width the crew will come aboard. The work you see going on around us is mostly fluff, things we’ll be doing ourselves tomorrow–as we will be under sail for Blassdorf as soon as there is light to see in the morning.”

“You are now dismissed. You will talk with no one about our scheduled departure. I will tell the crew just before sundown, and warn them that as of that moment they are in mortal peril to be found off this ship before we sail. Commander Noia, see me please.”

The others left, eyeing her. Noia didn’t care; she was just relieved that she hadn’t been sent packing.

“Commander...”

“Captain...” The two of them traded small smiles.

“I hope you understand why you had to wait a bit,” he told her.

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

“I hope that when I say that our ultimate destination is Xiphlon, that you will forgive me.”

“Xiphlon, sir?” she asked, momentarily confused.

“Yes. As you will recall, that will cut a half moon off your trip home, if you start there instead of Harphax City.”

Noia nodded in understanding.

He smiled. “Of course, we’ll approach in the dark of night, and we’ll put you and your group over the side in a small boat, and then turn away for Zimapan.”

That was truly a surprise. “Zimapan?”

“Aye, the High King thinks his Grand Marshal is too exposed without modern warships. _Three Hills_ is one of six ships that will be en route to Hestophes by the end of the year.”

“Don’t say any more,” she pleaded, knowing he had already said too much.

“Oh, it’s not all that secret, and the information I’ve told you will be public before any of us are in position to repeat it to eager ears.

“The sad thing, of course, is the twenty-three yard men working on _Three Hills_ just now. The High King has a message to them that I’ll explain as we sail in the morning. They are headed west with you.”

Noia shook her head vigorously. “Please, I don’t know who ordered this, but it wasn’t the High King. They have to be volunteers. Those men aren’t likely to ever see their homes again.”

“There’s a reason they are all unmarried and most of them are younger sons. Trust the High King, Lady Noia.”

“I’ll trust true volunteers and nothing else,” she told him.

“Please, I realize he’s not your king, but he’s mine. The reason he’s the king of everything that matters is because the High King is a fair man, who treats all men fairly. Before you condemn him, listen to what I say on the morrow.”

Noia nodded.

Captain Amby laughed. “The admiral said promoting you was my choice, but that I could easily come to regret it. I know your mission, Lady Noia; I understand its importance. It’s my fondest goal to give you the training and experience you need, without getting us all killed.”

“I’d appreciate that,” she said with a laugh.

“And your entourage,” Captain Amby said. “I had no trouble placing Tanda Sa, he’s a natural leader that all of the men look up to. Literally, as well as metaphorically. Trilium is a natural soldier who will do a great deal to train our Marines. Phelen...”

“Six times Mr. Yirtas, the ship’s clerk, has messed up reports sent to the admiral’s attention. I’d like to make him assistant to Mr. Phelen,” Noia proposed.

“You want Phelen as the ship’s clerk?” The idea seemed to surprise the captain.

“Sir, yes. You are the captain, sir, and can make whatever dispositions you wish. If Mr. Phelen doesn’t work out, Captain, replace him with my blessing.”

“Mr. Yirtas has a year of experience with what the admiral wants.”

“And still gets it wrong, Captain. Sir, please, by your leave. Allow Phelen to serve as clerk as long as it pleases you.”

“That’ll be all, Commander,” Captain Amby told her.

Noia paused an extra heartbeat. “And I swear to you, Captain,” her voice was a whisper, “I told them that if you ever had reason to put me over the side, I’d go on my own volition.”

She walked away, leaving him shaking his head.

Captain Amby was a competent man. While there would be value to her if she had command experience, it wasn’t worth ruining a man like Amby; it wasn’t worth much of anything. He’d told the admiral in a private communication that if he’d ever received an order placing Noia in command of his ship, he’d put her over the side instead. Perhaps he’d been too hasty.

III

The King of Zarthan belched, and his wife glared at him. “Different customs, wife.”

“In that case, we’d be treated to a symphony of sound every time we have a state dinner. I guess I must not be paying attention.”

“You’re never going to let me have any fun being king,” he pretended to pout.

“I’m curious, Freidal, if you had fun last night.”

“Ah!” he said with a hiss of pleasure. “Yes. I must say you have been properly obedient to the priests’ wishes that I stay off my back.”

“Oh, I’ll make up for it later, when I get further along in my pregnancy.”

“I’m glad I didn’t hurt you or the baby,” he said, turning serious.

“That bullet would have hurt a lot more, Freidal. Forget it. As Tuck would say, it’s part of the cost of doing business.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not going to dismiss it that lightly. We need to do something or we’re going to lose this war of treachery and treason as badly as we lost the war against the High King.

“What do we know about the plotters? Nothing, not really. We assume they want the throne of Zarthan, but who is their person who will step up to assume the crown? My marriage, Alros’ marriage must have put a big crimp in their plans–whatever those plans may be. The baby is another obvious problem for them.

“And the failed attempt netted them nothing but more stringent security,” Elspeth mused. “That must also be frustrating–for them.”

She looked pensive for a few moments. “The hardest part for us is that every time we find someone out, it’s because they’ve tried to implement a plot. We’re reacting to them, and we want it to be the other way around.”

“But where do we look?” Freidal railed. “And what happens if we look too hard? If we start sowing distrust everywhere, we’ll give our enemies a fertile field to till.”

“Well,” Elspeth told him, “I played a hunch, sending a loyal man north right after we heard that North Port was plotting against us. I just heard from my sources there that the man lasted less than a moon, before his head was on a pike in front of the palace main gate.

“There is fertile ground in North Port, I’m sure, because my sources say that there were about twenty-five heads there, including two of the leading merchants, a caravan master and half dozen other persons of some consequence in the county,” Elspeth went on. “But my sources don’t dare talk to anyone. No one even knows who they are sending messages to.”

“I should send a couple of thousand men north and fix the problem right now,” Freidal growled.

“You could, but what would we have afterwards? Another plot defeated and all those who could lead us further into the plots and treachery would be dead.”

“Perhaps we can use that threat against them,” Freidal suggested. “We let it be known for those who turn their coats against the traitors will be rewarded and well-protected.”

Elspeth sighed. “What do you suppose we’d do for a man who came off the street with such an offer of help today, Freidal? We’d promise him riches and place a secure guard around him. No, we don’t need to advertise. In any case, I’m afraid it’s not enough.”

“There are Khoograh’s sons. We could arrest them,” Freidal offered.

“No, that’s back to breeding discontent. We have nothing but rumor and their father’s demise to hold against them. They must know they are being watched and probably know we won’t be able to do it forever.”

“I hate being helpless!” Freidal said, his anger not even thinly veiled. “Each time I was wounded I would tell myself I’d be more careful next time, because it’s really awful lying in a bed, unable to so much as scratch yourself! This is no different!”

“The final victory is going to go to the side that makes the fewest mistakes. We keep frustrating them and that’s good. The problem with that though, is that they only have to succeed once in an assassination attempt, whereas we have to stop them all of the time.”

Freidal looked at her and shook his head. “There are times, Elspeth, when I wonder if you are a sorcerer.”

“Well, hold that thought, because I’ve been sitting here thinking about what I’d do in someone’s shoes if I wanted the crown to land in my lap.

“Tell me, Freidal, how did the High King win his throne? King Xyl? How did Duke Tuck achieve a duchy?”

Freidal growled, “Might makes right!”

Elspeth rapped his wrist lightly with her fingers. “No! If that was true, Alros would have set you aside. Hell, Xitki Quillan’s father would have set your grandfather and father aside, and Quillan could have killed you in the first battle you fought.

“No, they were men who come along at a critical time and who promised salvation to the people around them. The people didn’t always exactly rush to their banners, but enough did, enough to carry the day.

“So, they still have to kill us, but there aren’t going to be a lot of deaths, and then they will stop attacking and one of your kin will be the chosen puppet. Except everyone will know why the deaths stopped and his life wouldn’t be worth much, either.

“No, what I expect to happen is that when the deaths start, someone will take the fight back to the servants of our enemies, someone who appears to offer salvation, while resisting our enemies. He wins a few battles, and it looks even better. Then he ‘puts down’ a final plot, right after you and I, Alros and Denethon are dead, and it’s the savior who is offered the crown; the protector of Zarthan!”

Freidal sat staring at her for a few heartbeats, then sighed. “You know my Queen, if I could, I’d rather you were in charge, than me. The people would never accept it, though.”

Elspeth patted his cheek. “Husband, you need to learn how to think like a plotter. For instance, I could be the salvation of Zarthan, particularly if our child is a boy. I’d be regent for the next twenty years.”

He looked at her and blinked. “Do you suppose they will accuse you of that?”

“The instant your heart stops beating,” she told him confidently. “They will have to scotch any attempt I make at the throne. Odds are, they’ll tolerate Alros again, although by now I hope they realize she isn’t going to be the pushover they must have thought the last time.”

“So what do we do?”

“Like I said, we learn to think like plotters. What’s a plotter’s main stock in trade?”

“Treason and treachery!” Freidal answered quickly.

“Yes. And that predisposes them to think of everyone else around them as plotting to betray them as well, which is why we’re having such a hard time getting far in our investigation. If you were a person who believed in plots here, plots there, might you believe that everyone thinks the same way?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well, right now we have as enemies the plotters, the Northern Ruthani and King Xyl. Our greatest ally has to be their greatest foe: the High King, because I can’t help but think the plot is as much against the High King and Hostigos as it is against Zarthan and us.

“Last winter we had a meeting with Count Errock, Tuck and Tanda. Like as not, we’ll plan to do something similar this winter, if we’re not in an active war. What would happen if, out in the plains, long before they got to the meeting, Count Errock and whoever he was with were attacked by soldiers in Zarthani military garb?

“What if, at the same time, our party was attacked by soldiers wearing the High King’s halberd-head? Treason by an ally wouldn’t surprise anyone. Combine that with attacks on all or most of the signal posts, cutting our communications–what would people think? On both sides?”

“That’s an audacious plan,” he told her. “It would require large numbers of soldiers, probably mercenaries, and critical timing.”

“Mercenaries, or Ruthani dressed up as soldiers. Or both,” Elspeth reminded him. “What we need to do is listen carefully, maybe make a few sounds like we didn’t think the meeting last year was worth the time and trouble. It would be interesting to see who urges another meeting on us.”

Freidal nodded, his eyes bright.

There was a loud knock on the door and Freidal went to see who it was. One of the Hostigi signal sergeants presented him with a piece of paper. “It’s a long one, your highness,” the soldier reported. “Even so, I’ll wait just outside in case there’s a reply.”

Freidal started reading it as he went to sit next to Elspeth again. It was long, and he looked up at her. “We have made an error; we need to get an urgent message off to Duke Tuck.”

“Why is that?”

“This morning, in the main market square in River City, one Ingolde, son of Talus, a younger son of a baron in Mountain Wall, pulled a pistol and attempted to bring it to bear on Count Quillan. Several market-goers saw the weapon and knocked it up, the bullet discharging safely into the air.

“The market crowd then proceeded to tear the man to pieces.”

Elspeth grimaced. “Well, that’s entirely to be expected. Of all of the counties in Zarthan, Xitki is the one who gets along best with his people and who always has.”

“Yes, but Talus was married to a woman named Wenthea, who was sister to Grantia, who was married to Lady Inisa’s father, the woman who died twenty some years ago in childbirth that brought Inisa into the world.”

Elspeth slapped her forehead. “We never looked at Inisa’s mother’s family! It was so long ago! But Styphon was here then, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. We need to message Tuck and tell him not to trust her.”

Elspeth leaned over and kissed her husband on the cheek and patted his hand, like a doting grandmother whose grandson had just discovered that birds could fly.

“What?” Freidal asked.

“Tuck never trusted Lady Inisa and has had her watched since the beginning. That man would take any risk to avoid changing a baby! Lady Tanda trusted Inisa on our recommendation, but privately has told me that she’s having Lady Inisa watched all of the time herself.

“I’m not sure I could use my baby as a lure in a case of treachery, but I wouldn’t want to be Inisa if she is one of the plotters,” Elspeth spelled it out for Freidal.

“There are plotters everywhere,” Freidal said, sounding like he was despairing.

“They only seem to be numerous, because each time we find one it’s someone close. They probably have minor underlings someplace, but probably not where we can easily lay our hands on them, and even if we did, odds are they wouldn’t know anything important.

“No, this is what it’s going to take, Freidal. Slow, patient investigation–and making sure we follow all leads, even if they aren’t immediately obvious.”

“We need someone a lot cleverer than who we’ve got now, working on this investigation.”

“I would offer up the name of Captain Landsruhl, the man who commanded that convoy to Outpost, the one with Noia along. He did well at the time and has done better since. He realizes how many mistakes he made, and has also come to realize that mistakes or not, he did as well as any man could. He does appear to learn from his mistakes, unlike Captain Babalion, who’s handling things now.”

Freidal nodded. “Yes, he’ll be good. I agree. We’ll have him in later and talk to him. Babalion can take the next convoy east.” The husband and wife traded grins.

IV

Judy stared at Shuria, a look of stunned surprise on her face. “How many?”

“There’s a line of a thousand of King Xyl’s men, about two miles up the road,” the scout reported.

“And here I sit, with eighty-five soldiers, thirty of the Field Intelligence Unit and a section from the Heavy Weapons Company, another fifty men. I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Judy interjected bitterly.

Shuria grimaced. “My lady didn’t let me finish. There are four more lines of soldiers at two hundred yard intervals behind that first line, plus two small field guns on each flank. Each line more or less the same as the first.

“My lady, I have sent two urgent messages to our rear guard and there has been no reply. I have to think that they are behind us as well. I have failed you, Countess!”

Judy looked around. They’d just passed through a small village of about thirty of the adobe buildings that passed for housing in this part of Mexico. They also combined as barns, storerooms and who knew what all. There were north-south running ridges a mile away, on either side of the main road.

With field guns the walls of the village would be a deadly trap, providing lethal shrapnel to add to those field gun’s shot.

“Tell everyone to back up to a hundred yards this side of the village. Dig rifle pits, right now. Also for now, tell Sergeant Hollar to set up in the middle of the village.”

As if his name was a conjuration, the noble sergeant appeared. “Lady Judy? Is there a problem?”

“Five thousand soldiers in front of us and probably more behind us. Yes, we have a problem. Have your men set up in the middle of that village.”

“Do they have artillery?”

“Two batteries of two guns each, a battery on either flank,” Shuria reported.

“Officers call in a half finger width,” Judy told him. “Have the men start digging in, right this instant!” She pointed out to him where she wanted the line to be.

Hollar in turned pointed at Jumper, who sat his horse silently watching Sergeant Hollar with wide eyes. “Pass that word, young man, as the countess directed.”

The baron looked at Shuria. “You left out something.”

“Sergeant?”

“If you haven’t left out something, then why haven’t they attacked already?”

Judy sat up straight on her horse. Why hadn’t they attacked? Shuria had described a force prepared to receive an attack. Maybe they didn’t know how many were in her party? Maybe they had just decided to ambush the first patrol that came along here and had no idea who was here? Maybe they were bunny rabbits, ready to run at the first growl.

“Sergeant Hollar, if you would, ride forward with Shuria and see if they’ll parley. Try to get the parley in half a palm width. If they agree to that, we’ll prepare to go west, over the mountains there. We’ll look like a flanking party of a larger force, I hope.”

“We would still have to hold the parley, or they would surely open fire,” Sergeant Hollar nodded.

“Yes, and you and Shuria would be the ones attending. Now, please, let’s see if we can buy some time so that the men can dig deeper firing positions!”

The two men rode forward, while Judy contemplated another monumental screw-up on her part. Yes, this wasn’t a military expedition; they’d gone to talk to the town elders of Cuixla, a hundred miles north of Tecpan. The town of five thousand had been reluctant to let any of their young men join the army and her job had been to convince them of their duty. It had seemed to go well and they’d started back to Tecpan this morning. It was a little after High Sun, and she’d planned on a meal break soon.

No artillery again, and not even very many mortars. You could talk about how this wasn’t supposed to be possible and all of that, but the fact was, this was the third time that the soldiers of King Xyl had surprised her.

And once again, her best hope appeared to be a hasty retreat. This wasn’t going to make men eager to fight for Mexico–it was going to make them think she was a total fool, only too quick to flee.

In less than a finger width, she could see Sergeant Hollar and Shuria coming back. They weren’t flogging their horses, which was good. Shuria hung back, while Sergeant Baron Hollar came forward.

“My lady...” his voice cracked, then he swallowed and went on. “Their leader is King Xyl’s brother, Captain-General Cambon. He has, he tells me, been sent to destroy you.”

“Then why hasn’t he attacked?” Judy asked, thinking herself reasonable.

“He wouldn’t say. He did say that he wishes to see you alone, that you have his word of honor as well his king’s word of honor that you will be safe, and that they value their word of honor as much as you, Duke Tuck or the High King.”

“Alone?”

“He said you should bring a signal sergeant. He knows who I am and he told me to stay back.”

“Do you think it’s a trap?”

Shuria spoke up, a little loudly. “I sent two men back. There are a thousand of them, waiting north of the village, about three miles behind us.”

Four miles between the two forces? If Judy was willing to give up everything but the lives of her soldiers, she could retreat a short distance, then run up the mountain. The horses would give them enough of a start to stay ahead of a pursuit, and maybe, just maybe, they could get away with their lives, although they’d leave a lot of equipment and their dignity behind.

Sergeant Hollar cleared his throat again. “Lady Judy? Did you send a contact report?”

She nodded and then kicked herself. She’d sent it, even though she’d assumed that their enemies had killed the signaling parties first. She pointed at her senior signal sergeant and he came at a gallop.

“Who did you send the contact report to? Did they acknowledge?” she asked him.

“Tecpan acknowledged, it’ll be a bit before Xipototec acknowledges. We’re expecting the first reactions any moment.”

Judy ran her hand over her face. So, she was in communication with Tecpan and Xipototec. At least someone would know what happened here.

“Sergeant Hollar, will they honor the truce?”

“Countess, it is my judgment that they will. This General Cambon–he seemed upset and distracted. It can’t be anything we’ve done. He kept us a dozen paces away and we had to talk loudly back and forth.”

“No, it’s probably not something we’ve done,” Judy told him. She turned to the signal sergeant. “Well, sergeant, you’re elected. Trade horses with Sergeant Hollar, so that if we need to make a quick exit, we can go quickly indeed.”

There were chuckles from the command group, but Judy shook her head. “Make sure that the only codes you have are the ones in your head.”

“We try, my lady, but sometimes, you learn a little anyway.”

“Well forget it if you can and come with me.”

She and the sergeant rode forward. She was surprised to find a single man standing alone in the desert, well forward of the others.

She rode right up to him and stopped. Tuck was the master of the studied insult in a parley; Judy was just grateful for more time to let her soldiers dig in. She sat her horse facing him.

“I am Judy, Countess of Tecpan,” she announced herself.

“Cambon, younger brother of his highness, Xyl, King of the Olmecha.”

“Your men are in our lands,” she told him.

“Yes. Please, I know this sounds strange, but watch.”

He shed his tunic, dropping it on the ground. Then he dropped his trousers on top of the first article of clothes. Now he was wearing a simple pair of boots and a loincloth, which concealed absolutely nothing.

He slid the boots off. “Please, Lady Judy, if you value Mexico, if you value your soldiers, walk with me.” He pointed a few feet away.

“If you think I’m taking off my clothes and go walking with you, you’re wrong,” she told him.

“Keep them, keep a pistol. Hold the pistol on me, if you doubt my word. I swear an oath to your Galzar that I will speak nothing but the truth. But time, Countess, is something, once gone, we can never regain. There is an urgency here.”

Judy got off her horse, reached into a saddlebag and took out a shotgun and slid it into the holster. She hated carrying a shotgun like that, but at least it was at hand if she needed it.

She walked a few feet with General Cambon, and he turned and faced south, looking at his men, formed up in ranks. They were a formidable force, looking calm and cool in spite of the afternoon sun.

“I received a messenger from my brother last night. It was unexpected. Even before he finished talking, the messenger fainted dead away. He died, shortly before dawn.”

Judy watched him, not saying anything.

“There is plague in Tenosh,” the general said bluntly. “My brother tells me that it turns a man’s insides to water, and he fouls himself to death. He literally empties himself, as if he was pissing, but from the other place. That is how the messenger died last night.”

Judy tried to keep her face expressionless.

“My brother has told me to ignore my mission, that I am not to undertake it, no matter what. I am to bring my soldiers back to the Heartland with all expedition. I have decided to tell you about this plague and to ask a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yes. The messenger reported he stopped in Zacateca four days ago and Tecpan yesterday morning. My lady, he has brought this plague north. My brother says that if you touch a sick person, you will die. I wish to take my soldiers east, up the ridge, and then go south, staying on the top of the ridge. That will lead us west of Zacateca. There I will decide on a final route south.”

“Done,” she said without hesitation.

He looked at her, then around them. “I swear, Countess, that I wouldn’t have had this meeting with you, if I thought you would have believed anyone else. I walked with the messenger, I helped ease him to the ground, when he fainted.”

Judy swallowed. The price of command, Tuck had once said were the less glamorous portions of command. Where you had to risk your life. When you absolutely had to.

“It is nothing,” she said, making a cutting sign with her hand. She waved to the signal sergeant. “I am in contact with Tecpan and Xipototec. Let me send an urgent message to tell them of this. Lord Tuck–he is not a healer priest, but he knows of many plagues. This one sounds familiar to me. If it is the one that I think it may be, perhaps we can offer some hope.”

The general nodded. “I could not bring myself to beg, but I hoped for this. Still,” he waved at the soldiers, waiting patiently in the sun, “they think I’m toying with you, before we destroy you. Please, Lady Judy, if there is anything you can do to save even one of my men, I will be grateful.”

“Well, it’s going to take a while. The line to Xipototec has many links. Once we get them all up and paying attention, it will work fast enough, but that might take a few finger widths.”

“Whatever you need, Lady Judy.”

She nodded and gestured to the sergeant. “Send a clear message towards Xipototec first, asking for Tuck and Tanda Havra to come to the signal station, and for everyone to standby for direct conversation. The same with Gamelin and Lady Lydia at Tecpan. Xipototec first. Oh, and send these letters to both places.”

She wrote down “plague in Tenosh” in English, but using Zarthani script.

In a few heartbeats, his mirror was flashing, first west, then south. The sergeant finished. “It will be a few finger widths my lady,” he reported. His eyes went to the mass of men south of them.

“You already reported them, did you not?” she asked, a little rougher than she intended.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Then ignore them.”

The sergeant nodded, but looked unconvinced.

General Cambon turned to her. “I would call one of my officers to come close, but not too close. I wish for my men to stand down.”

“Of course, General,” Judy said, once again without hesitation.

It was barely a finger width, when flashes from the west came. “Xipototec reports that Duke Tuck is there, that Tanda Havra is coming. Count Gamelin and Lady Lydia are standing ready in Tecpan.”

Judy had written down an English language report and gave it to the sergeant to send.

It was fairly quick. A finger width later, Tuck replied. The signal sergeant wrote it down and handed it to her. “Sounds like cholera.” Well, short messages went quicker.

Judy wrote, “How do you treat it? I remember soap and water and fluids.”

The reply was also short. “Salty fluids...sea salt is best. A pinch of saltpeter helps. Good sanitation. Quarantine.”

Judy turned to General Cambon. “This is a disease passed by very small demons that move from person to person in their waste. Soap kills these demons. Boiling water kills these demons. Washing with strong wine will kill the demons.

“Have as many of your people who can, avoid contact with the sick. Have everyone wash after pissing or shitting. They have to wash well and their waste has to go in a place where it can’t possibly reach rivers or wells. Water to drink, to wash with, has to be boiled for two finger widths.”

She sent to Tuck, “How many will get sick?” while she was still talking with the general.

The reply wasn’t good. “Given the circumstances, nearly everyone. Fluid support will save most adults. There is probably nothing they can do to make their cities and towns sanitary. I’m not sure we can do it here, either.”

Judy turned to the General. “Duke Tuck says that if you give the men whose bowels are turning to water lots of water to drink, they will be stronger. Salty water is best, ocean salt is better, and a pinch of fireseed helps too.”

“Fireseed? I thought the High King said there were no demons in fireseed.”

“No, there is a chemical that the body needs. Other chemicals are why sweat tastes salty, and why salt needs to be added to the water.”

“Men die if they drink salt water!” the general said obstinately.

“That’s because their bowels haven’t turned to water,” Judy said patiently. “You need to replace the salt they lose. Piss is salty. So is shit.”

It took a bit to get past his resistance.

In the meantime, Lydia had been gathering people in Tecpan, including Gamelin. Gamelin was determined to come dashing to Judy’s rescue and Judy told him to be patient.

Judy wrote it down in English and hoped Lydia would be careful how she told Gamelin that he was going to be needed more in Tecpan than rushing to Judy’s rescue. She made triply sure that Lydia knew the treatment for cholera, because there was just about no way to keep it out of the city.

She was also concerned that the one message from Gamelin was a wish for her to keep well. She told him to stay there, and hoped he’d abide by her wishes, but without any real expectation that he would.

V

Sergeant Hollar stood still, mentally trying to pick himself up from having his breath knocked away and took stock. The men were digging in; digging with a will, knowing their lives would depend on the depth of their foxholes.

A dozen villagers were also helping dig as well. That told the sergeant that they knew what would happen if the soldiers of Mexico lost this day.

He cast on eye on the mountains to their east and west. The range to the east was higher, and there was a ridge that would probably offer an observer a view of both of the forces that opposed him. He glanced at Jumper, and started to open his mouth. As quickly as the thought came, he knew it was wrong.

Gryllos had wanted the boy to have some field experience. The boy had been torn between the desire to get away from Tecpan and his desire to stay at Gryllos’ side, but Gryllos had convinced him that this was the best.

“Jumper, run and fetch Corporal Alita of the Special Intelligence Unit,” the sergeant told the young man harshly. The boy jumped to obey.

The Ruthani had a huge burden on their shoulders–they lost all honor if they refused an order. Anyone sent up the hill was going to have the best chance of surviving; it would kill the boy, though. Just kill him. What could he tell his mates, afterwards, eh? ‘I was sent away from the battle.’ What kind of story would that be?

A moment later the corporal saluted. Even if you looked close, it wasn’t possible to tell she was pregnant–not yet. But she was. “Corporal, go up the western ridge, about half way up. Find a good spot to watch what’s going on down here. If fighting starts, wait until dark and go west, then south and report what happened to General Gamelin at Tecpan.”

He could see the fury in the woman’s eyes, but he dropped his eyes to her belly. The fury redoubled for an instant, then she sagged back. “Yes, Sergeant.”

When she was gone, Sergeant Hollar’s eyes again went to the hills to the south and west. The flashes meant nothing to him and that told him that something untoward was happening, because it was clear it wasn’t the usual message code. Why would their enemies let them signal away, unless it was so that they could exult in their defeat, when help was close?

None of his conjectures made much sense, he had no idea what was happening.

Then he saw Lady Judy and the signal sergeant returning, and stifled his urge to rush to meet her. A good thing, because he would have looked stupid!

She stopped several hundred yards away and called loudly to them. “Set up a kettle of boiling water half way between us. Bring soap and new clothes for the sergeant and me. Approach no closer than the fire, and once everything is set, pull back.”

“There’s no danger of an attack?”

“They are withdrawing even now,” Judy called. “The fire, the water, the soap, the clothes. Fast! Officer and NCO call as soon as we’re done!”

Men came running to do her bidding, and in a finger width a cook pot was hanging on its tripod over a fire, and the two sets of clothes were piled a few feet away.

Hollar was stunned to see the countess dismount from her horse, picket it, then take off her clothes. Every last stitch. Her clothes went in the fire, as did the sergeant’s. The two of them stood in plain view, washing from head to toe, then they sponged off with fresh hot water, and then redressed.

The strange actions weren’t done. The sergeant gingerly moved the cook pot away from the fire, then the two of them unsaddled their horses, took off all of the reins and head harnesses as well, then all of it, saddles and all, went into the fire. Then the horses were slapped on their rumps and sent west.

Judy and the sergeant trudged the several hundred yards to a silent group of men and women.

The countess was blunt. “There is plague in Tenosh. Even now, General Cambon has been recalled.” She looked at them all, all of them speechless. “Cambon is King Xyl’s brother. He received a messenger last night with the orders for his recall. The messenger passed through Zacateca and Tecpan on his way here. He passed the message personally to General Cambon and was dead before sunup. The messenger had the plague; he brought it with him to Cambon and now us.”

Sergeant Hollar swallowed. Give him a clean death in battle any day!

“Lord Tuck is even now formulating a plan on how we will deal with this. We’re in a little better position than King Xyl, but not much. We will isolate anyone who has the plague, anyone who has come in contact with them. Those who are well will nurse those sick.

“This is a terrible disease,” and she went on to explain how terrible, and then told them the secret to treating it. At the end, Lady Judy was blunt. “With proper treatment, perhaps nine of ten who fall ill will survive. Without treatment...maybe half will survive.”

She went on to explain how the disease was passed, and the importance of soap and water. “If you skip even once, you can kill everyone in your squad, if it’s your day to help with the mess,” she told them. “You will have to wash each time you use the latrines. We’ll set up cooking pots at once with boiled water to use, along with lots of soap. You must use them!”

Finally she looked around at them. The sun was nearly down behind the western mountains. “In a finger width I’ll tell everyone. It will be up to you people listening to me right now to make sure that each and every one of your soldiers understands the importance of this, because it could take just one person’s carelessness to kill all of us.

“We will have a dark night tonight, so we will camp here. We move out timed for first light. We will be moving very fast. Sergeant Hollar, you’ll be the rear-guard. Anyone whose horse dies, you assemble them and march them along as quickly as they can go. The rest of us will next sleep in Tecpan!”


	16. Cambon

I

Gamelin saw the Mexicotál colonel he was talking to suddenly turn slightly away and stare. He was too good of a man not to have a reason, so Gamelin craned around to look as well.

A horse and rider were coming from the city, the horse run at a reckless pace, the rider flogging the poor animal. He had to have been a fair horseman, because a short finger width later the horse slid to a stop a few feet from Gamelin, and one of the signal sergeants came down quickly. “Lord! An urgent message from the countess! She’s been ambushed!”

The sergeant started to say something more, but the colonel spoke first. “My men are ready to march this instant! Say the word and we’re on the road north!”

“Go!” Gamelin told him without hesitation. “You yourself, stay and await orders, but get them ready to move.”

He reached out for the message, silently cursing himself for reacting too quickly. Wouldn’t it look silly if the message said she’d killed them all and was returning as planned? He saw the pale look on the messenger’s face and decided that he’d have the other division moving in a palm width as well.

The message was terse: “Five thousand infantry bar my advance south. Reports of another thousand in my rear. They have offered to parley. At least we have time to dig in. J.”

Gamelin looked up at the messenger. “Where are they?”

“Just south of the village of Chilaic, Lord Gamelin. Perhaps a hundred, a hundred and fifty people in the village.”

Vosper had been with one of the regiments and he came running. Gamelin handed him the message and waved at his batman. “Our horses! Right now! Turn out the other division as quickly as possible! Have them ready to march at once! No more than a palm width!”

The man jumped to obey, and Gamelin swung easily into the saddle, heedless of Vosper, his dignity or common sense, he too flogged Hellfire back to the city and the perch on the wall where the northern signal station was located.

It wasn’t even a finger width later and he was standing next to a signal sergeant who was writing down a message as the signalman repeated letters. Gamelin frowned. Code? That was odd. Why code? What code? It was clear the signalmen didn’t know it.

Lady Lydia appeared and held out her hand for the paper. She looked at it for a moment and then signaled for Gamelin to follow her.

He liked Lady Lydia; she was easily Judy’s best friend, after himself, and he knew she had been Judy’s best friend before she had ever met Gamelin. Still, it was a little hard to be ordered around by a sixteen-year-old girl. It was impossible to forget, of course, that those who had gotten in the way of these girls, then two years younger, were all dead now.

“Judy is parlaying with the commander of King Xyl’s soldiers. Their commander has allowed a signalman to accompany her, and is letting him signal in the course of the parlay.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Well, consider that this General Cambon says he’s King Xyl’s brother and was sent north to kill Judy. And now he says he’s changed his mind.”

That stunned Gamelin. Vosper had made it up to the station and he’d listened as well. Vosper spat. “Like Lord Gamelin said before. That makes no sense.”

“Yeah, well there’s three words here that say it all. ‘Plague in Tenosh.’”

Gamelin’s breath sucked away, but Vosper wasn’t a soft man. “And this hurts us how?”

The signal officer was now present and he handed another sheet to Lady Lydia. Now it was her turn to pale. “Because the messenger sent from Xyl to Cambon passed through Zacateca and Tecpan. He arrived half dead, and died a few palm widths later from the plague. This General Cambon wants to know if we know the plague and if there is anything we can do to save the people of their Heartland.”

She swallowed, and one of the sergeants ran and fetched her some water. It amused Gamelin that he wasn’t offered any. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was strong and Lydia seemed weak, or because the soldier had more regard for her than for him. He was a townsman, and as a signalman, it meant it was likely he was married. The conclusion that led to was that he was concerned about Lady Lydia.

Lydia took a swallow and then spoke clearly–to the signalmen. “You all swore oaths that signals stop here. This time will test that oath. If you walk away from here and tell people that plague is abroad in the city, you will kill thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of innocent people.”

She held up the sheet. “Lady Judy is talking to us at the same time as she talks with Lord Tuck.”

Another paper was placed in her hand.

She nodded. “Yes, it’s true. Tuck thinks he knows this plague. It isn’t good, but we can fight it. We cannot have people flee the town, as a good many will carry this plague with them. Within the city, with the resources and the people in the city, we can save most of us. Anyone who flees will die alone and unaided in the desert, without what they need to live. You think about that, when you go home tonight and see your wives and children. Yes, you can tell them the plague is here. But don’t you understand? The plague is here!”

“We can fight it?” the signal officer asked.

“Yes. We won’t save everyone and it certainly won’t be easy, but we’ll be able to save nine in ten. But we have to start preparing as soon as possible. Lieutenant, you run to the council chambers, there is always someone there. Tell that person to call the Council for a meeting in a palm width. Tell the Alcalde to come here. Do not, under pain of death, tell anyone anything else or tell the Alcade why he’s being summoned. Do you understand, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Lady Lydia!” He saluted and sprinted down the steps from the tower in the corner of the city walls.

Lydia turned to Gamelin. “The conversation is going to go slow now. It’s three times as far to Tuck as it is to us. He’s at the signal tower in Xipototec.”

“Thank you, Lady Lydia. What plague is this?”

“One that no one here seems to have seen before, although as I said, Lord Tuck has a name for it, he believes. Small demons, the ones we call bacteria, live in our guts. Most of them don’t hurt; in fact, many of them help us digest the food we eat. However, some are nasty. They burrow into the walls of the gut. It’s like a burn, only on the inside. Like a burn, the injury leaks fluid. Three or four days after the devils enter the body, essentially you shit yourself to death if you’re not treated. Lady Judy says General Cambon described it as the messenger’s insides turned to water.”

Gamelin grimaced. It was hard enough to be in battle, never knowing if a bullet was coming for your head. But to be sitting in your room, never knowing if you’d breathed in a demon? And if you did, that you’d die? Battle, it seemed to him, was a much cleaner death.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“Tuck’s working on a reply,” Lady Lydia told him. “Even now, it’s probably on its way. We’ll just have to be patient, Lord Gamelin.”

“And Judy?”

“She asked Cambon why he didn’t destroy her. His reply parallels Lord Tuck’s reasoning about at some point all the stupid God-King’s generals would be dead. ‘Aside from the fact that my brother commanded me to return with all dispatch, without engaging you? Because the High King is reputed to be a sorcerer, as is Lord Tuck and as are you? Right now, I’d do anything I have to, to save even one of my men from this death. Men I’d cheerfully have sent into a hail of your gunfire, if things were otherwise. Because if I can save these men, then perhaps my brother can save those in the Heartland.’”

Another sheet of paper was put in her hand. “Treatment is water. Salty water. Sea salt is best with a pinch of fireseed...” She went down the list of things that would have to be done with Gamelin.

Gamelin wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought that Lady Lydia was delaying. That turned out to be right. The Alcalde came up the steps, not running, but faster than usual. “General Gamelin, Lady Lydia,” he said when he reached them.

Gamelin saw Lydia pass Vosper a glance. He wasn’t sure what the message was, but Vosper moved, as if looking back into the city.

“Alcalde, in a few moments we will have fell news for the Council and for Tecpan.”

“My lady?”

“Probably two days ago now, a messenger of King Xyl’s passed through Tecpan on his way to join the King’s brother, General Cambon, near the village of Chilaic. The message the man brought was that there was plague in Tenosh and that Cambon was to return home at once.”

The Alcalde’s brow furrowed. “Lady Judy? Is she in trouble?”

“No more than we are, Alcalde. The messenger died before dawn this morning of the plague. He brought it with him to Tecpan as well as to this General Cambon’s soldiers.”

The Alcalde took a step back and started to turn, but ran solidly into Vosper. Gamelin had to admit, that had been very nicely done!

“Alcalde, this is a test of your leadership. Of all of our leadership. If we prepare, we can beat this. We will be hurt, but nothing like the hurt those who aren’t prepared will be dealt. If people panic, if they run, they’ll die alone in the desert, far from help. Help that is here in Tecpan, Alcalde. Help we can offer them, if we keep our heads and do our duty.

“General Cambon talked to Lady Judy instead of fighting. That was a brave, desperate act. He knew, as should you, the hope for survival is in the knowledge of the High King, Lord Tuck, Lady Judy and myself. If you turn and run, if you shout a warning to the rooftops, half of the people of Tecpan will be dead in a moon. Or more of them.

“Listen to me, listen to Countess Judy, to Duke Tuck, and I’m sure to the High King. If you do, some will die, but not nearly as many as if they panic and run. It won’t be pleasant; it will mean long, hard, arduous work of the most unpleasant sorts.

“We can only deal with this if we are together, if we are organized and prepared. There isn’t much time, perhaps two or three days at most. There will be much to do. Now sir, will you stand with us or against us?”

The Alcalde glanced over his shoulder and looked at Vosper. The old man had a face that looked like it had been chiseled from stone. There was no doubt when the Alcalde turned back he’d just seen his death.

“Of course, Lady Lydia! Lord Tuck, Lady Judy, Lord Gamelin! All of you worked to free us from the God-King! Command me, and it shall be as you order!”

Lydia turned to Gamelin. “You are the military commander, General Gamelin. While I can’t order you, I would strongly suggest that you place Tecpan under martial law, as of this moment. Bar the gates, let none enter or leave. Get the soldiers that are outside the walls, inside, except for a thousand or so. The barracks outside the walls can house those who come who are sick.”

“There are barracks for sixty thousand soldiers!” Gamelin complained. “Putting that many soldiers in the city will significantly increase crowding. That’s always bad in a plague.”

“Tuck and Judy talk about containing it. Lord Gamelin, Lord Alcalde, I tell you now they are wrong. I’ve read about this disease and it spreads by contamination of food and water with the fluids from the sick. No matter how much we stress to the people and soldiers to wash their hands, to drink only boiled water, some will be careless and others will make mistakes. Maybe afterwards they will be more careful, but not now.

“Anyone who touches someone with the disease will almost certainly transmit it. I know what it’s like and you don’t. Your bowels turn to water. You don’t shit; you pee out the wrong hole. It’s forceful, very forceful. The way you treat it is to make the sick person drink salty water. Lots and lots of water, as much as their body sends out. Even if a finger width later what you give them comes out the other end! I swear to you, that if you take care, if you make them drink salty water, and even plain water is a little help, most will live. As I swear to you that without treatment, most will die in hours after they sicken.”

Gamelin looked at her, then past the Alcalde at the city. More than two hundred thousand people lived in or around Tecpan these days. He looked at Lydia; it was something he had to ask. “At best? How many die?”

“One in ten who are treated. Without treatment, with luck, one in two. Without luck...nine of ten.”

Gamelin restrained his urge to start being sick right away. “Vosper, find another officer. He is to pass the word, officer’s call in half a palm width at the main gate. Continue on to the duty officer and tell him to close the city. Case Maya.”

There was the faintest trace of a smile on Vosper’s face. “Maya, eh?” Then he was trotting back down the steps.

“The spy?” the Alcalde asked, horrified at the very mention of the woman’s name.

“Yes, the former spy and now our prisoner,” Gamelin told him.

“She is to be succored as all the rest,” Lydia told the Alcalde. “She will be useful.”

Gamelin nodded his head, understanding why that would be. There were only four people in Tecpan who knew that secret about Maya. He spoke formally to the Alcalde. “Sir, Countess Judy has placed me in charge of the city in her absence; I have always been the military commander. Sir, the gates are being closed and there will be martial law inside the city. We will go and inform the Council of these facts and the reasons for my actions.”

The Alcalde stood stiff and concerned. “Lord, you have my word. Until you inform the Council of your decision, none shall hear any of this from my lips!”

Gamelin waved the man on, and turned to Lydia. “You will stay here for a while longer?”

“Yes, at least half a palm width. Establish your command post in the Council chamber, it’s a central location.”

He contemplated if the girl had any idea how hard it was for him to listen to her. Then he laughed, loud and openly.

“I keep thinking I shouldn’t have to listen to you,” he told Lydia. “And then I realize just who you are.”

“I am a girl, not that much different from Judy, Becky or Elspeth.”

Gamelin hugged his sides with laughter and bowed to her. “My point exactly, Lady Lydia! A queen, a countess, and the greatest scholar west of the Great River!”

II

Tanda had been back only for half a moon from her visit to Outpost. She was a little ashamed of herself, but it was her son; what was she to do? And of course, Lady Inisa continued to care for John, even though Puma was never far.

It was, in a word, nerve-racking.

Tuck came in her office and stood for a moment. As if there was a link between the two, Puma arrived.

“Lady Puma,” Tuck said carefully. “I want you to take two of your most reliable Ruthani scouts. In a finger width I will send Lady Inisa to our quarters to fetch John. You and your people will arrest her, as gently as you can, before she gets there. You will take her to your unit’s detention cell, where she is to be held, safely, I might add, until Tanda or I have a time to talk to her.

“When that’s done, assemble your people and report to General Andromoth for your assignment. He’s going to be a little busy for a while, but I assure you, you won’t have to wait long.”

Puma bowed, then left. Tanda had no doubt that the instant Puma was out of sight, she’d be running. Probably singing and skipping as she went, because for whatever reason, Puma and Lady Inisa hated each other.

It was, Tanda thought, a telltale. She’d never found anything to dislike about Lady Inisa and she had never really taken to Puma. Why it was that she distrusted the first and trusted the other seemed to defy comprehension. Unless you threw in a baby, not quite a year old, and then it made perfect sense, at least to Tanda.

“Tuck?”

“Come with me. I want your unvarnished opinions. Later, in private, your knowledge.”

She grimaced. Each and every time that Tuck went to that well, there was a measurable chance she’d overstep the line that Chief Hadron had set for her. It was vague and even worse, she didn’t understand most of what she knew, in the context of that line.

They went quickly to the signal station on the southeastern wall, where a flurry of activity was underway. The signal officer handed Tuck a pile of paper that Tuck read through quickly. When he didn’t move to hand them to her, she held out her hand.

He smiled and did just that. Gibberish; even so, she recognized it as a language, which almost certainly made it Hispano-Columbian English. This was very, very bad. She contemplated taking two steps to the south and then diving over the wall to the desert floor twenty feet below. If she went headfirst and found a convenient rock, well that would do it. “It” though, wouldn’t do John any good, it wouldn’t do Tuck any good, but it would prevent her from dying as a menial cleaning toilets someplace unpleasant, smiling and happy at her job with no knowledge or memories of her son or of her husband.

It was the thought that Tazi might go unremembered that did the most to stop her.

Tuck spoke softly. “You can’t even read the words and yet you cry?”

“If they learn of this, you’re dead and I’m dead. To be secure we would need to destroy any copies made between here and Judy and between Judy and Tecpan.”

“It might not matter,” he told her. “There’s a plague in Tenosh. Cholera. Have you ever heard of it?”

She shook her head. “Plagues, yes, I’ve heard of plagues. Yes, I know the symptoms and effects of many. What are the symptoms of this one?”

She listened as he explained.

“I’ve never heard the word, but the disease isn’t uncommon.”

“Yeah, well it’s coming.”

“We can bar the gates,” Tanda said reasonably.

“We probably could. But what about the nearly sixty thousand right now outside those gates? Do they get to come in, before we close the gates?”

“Of course!”

“Tanda, it sounds simple, but it isn’t. When do you stop letting people in? What do you do when the people trying to enter the city mass at a gate in numbers sufficient to overpower the guards there? Can we afford not to succor strangers in their time of need? Hostigos is famous for hospitality, particularly to those in need. What about later, after the plague has run its course?”

“I don’t know the answers to those questions. I know how far those I once served are willing to go to protect their secrets. This is, I’m sure, going too far.”

“Well, frankly I don’t care. We have two tasks to deal with in the short term. The first is preventing a panic, the second is preparing for what comes next. That last has two parts, getting the supplies and things needed ready, and preparing the people. Cholera is a disease of the intestines; you can deal with it by what are called supportive measures: replacing the fluids and chemicals lost from the body. Often times there is a high fever as well, and that can be treated with water baths.

“All of that will take a great deal of time and preparation to get ready.”

Another message was handed to him and he grunted. “Yes, Lydia has asked Gamelin to declare martial law in Tecpan and he’s agreed. Real soon now, you’ll see the explosion from over that way, when Gamelin realizes he’s not going to be able to go to Judy’s aid.”

“Judy doesn’t need aid,” Tanda said. “She needs to get to Tecpan as quickly as possible. Gamelin obviously needs to stay there.”

“Yes. Well, I’m going to stay here. I had them flash a message in the High King’s special code back north to Pinyon and Count Errock. I’ve sent another in Elspeth’s code to Baytown. They’ll have a lot more time to get ready, but it’s going to be important for what they have to do, if we can do it right here, first. If we can show that what we do works, at least as well as anything will work, then they can hold out hope to their people and keep them from panicking.”

He stopped talking, then reached out and hugged her tightly. She hugged back, and then looked at him. “What was that?”

“If it is cholera, my people had ways to prevent people from getting the disease. I don’t know if any of the others had the treatment, but I did. I won’t get it. You, John, Judy, Lydia, Elspeth–everyone else–are going to get it. There is virtually no sure way to avoid it. We can tell people to wash, we can boil water and all of that, but it’s going to be hard to keep it from spreading.

“And even if you miss it this time, the disease is going to be hanging around now, waiting to strike again. We will always have a few cases, I suspect. It was that way in the country where I fought.”

“This treatment–can you duplicate it?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea how it was done. A few vague words that might just as well have applied to something else, not this. Perhaps your former employers protected you.”

“I could ask, but I have a feeling that the less I have to do with them, the better.”

“I’ll have the signalmen send to all the stations, that they are to burn the coded messages. It won’t be the first time they’ve gotten messages like that.”

“They will know.”

“Probably. I am not actively trying to tell people about their secret, or even letting on that there is one. I can’t live as if there is a giant axe hanging over my head if I make a mistake. I swear, I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag about their secret, but I’m not going to fail to use every means I have short of that, to keep our people as safe as I can keep them.”

Tanda nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get with Brigadier Andromoth. Tell him I’m going to speak to the people of Xipototec again in a palm width, as many as can come. I want all of soldiers formed up in the square. This time they need to be in uniform, but not armed. Either our people can deal with this rationally or not. If we let the information dribble out, they won’t trust us.”

She went to tell the general what Tuck wanted. Puma was with him, and Puma was the first to speak. “Lady Tanda, Lady Inisa is under confinement.”

“Thank you, Lady Puma.”

“I have put two of my people, girls of fourteen, with your son for the time being. You can choose who you want later, if you like.”

“No, pick two and assign them permanently.”

General Andromoth cleared his throat. “Lady Tanda, I assume something unfortunate has occurred.”

“Something like that. It would be better to say a catastrophe is about to happen. Lady Judy reported earlier that she had been ambushed again. However, it would be a better description to say that King Xyl’s brother stopped to ask her for directions.”

General Andromoth tried to keep control of his face, but eventually he shook his head. “My lady, I have no idea what you mean.”

“There is plague in Tenosh. This general, who could have ambushed Lady Judy, asked instead for the High King’s help, Tuck’s help, Judy’s help, to deal with the plague.”

“Are we going to do that?” Brigadier Andromoth asked, his eyes bright.

“Yes. If treated, the disease will kill one in ten. Untreated...half or more.”

“Good!” the general said with alacrity.

“Very good!” Puma agreed.

“No, not so good. With a tenth of his people dead, King Xyl might retain control. Might. With half of them dead? The Heartland will fall apart and who knows what will happen then? And in any case, the messenger that brought King Xyl’s message to his brother passed through Zacateca and Tecpan to reach his destination, and died before the next sunrise of the plague.”

“You are afraid it will come here?” Andromoth asked.

“Tuck is certain it will come here. He says it is spread by bad sanitation. That is, not washing with soap and water after using the latrine, by coming in contact with the sick and then not washing correctly. Washing in boiled water, I might add, as well as drinking it. A person who is sick from this plague spews waste like a summer flood. They can die from water loss, lying in their own bed in a pond of waste. It is an awful, terrible disease and the least contact with the person who is sick, or that person’s waste will spread it. What chance do you think we will have to avoid it?”

“None. But, Lord Tuck says we can treat it?”

“Yes–if we start making preparations now, if we prepare the people for what is coming now. Once again, he wishes to speak to the people and the soldiers of Xipototec. In a palm width. The soldiers in uniform, but not armed. Would you please pass the word?”

Andromoth nodded, stood and left. Puma looked at Tanda, obviously quite nervous. “We of the Ruthani get sick, sometimes. But nothing like what you describe.”

“These things are a terrible curse,” Tanda explained. “We will do what we can to make things come out well.”

“Will it come to the Ruthani as well?”

Tanda sighed. “Yes. Tuck has already sent word to the High King, to Pinyon, Count Errock and Queen Elspeth at Baytown, because sooner or later this will come to them, too.”

Puma bowed her head, and then looked at Tanda. “It has never come to the Ruthani before, because we were isolated and kept to ourselves.”

“Probably. Plus, there aren’t that many of you and you don’t live in big towns.”

“Was this deliberate?”

The question took Tanda aback. “No. What it will do to King Xyl and the Heartlands of his people is unspeakable, and will hurt them far more than it does us. We would never do such a thing! Never!” Her eyes blazed in anger.

III

Noia was working with two of the brighter sailors, teaching them the rudiments of navigation when the lookout, up the mast called. “Deck! Ship in sight to starboard! Looks to be at anchor! Just bare poles!”

Noia joined several others at the rail; in truth the small ship was hard to see, with no sails set. Even as she saw it, a signal light began to flash in their direction.

“Signalman to the quarterdeck!” Noia called loudly, before she turned to her students.

“Gentlemen, you are dismissed. We’ll take this up later.”

She went and stood next to Captain Amby, saying nothing as he dealt with the signals. After a finger width, the mast lookout called down. “Small boat under sail, exiting the channel, Captain! It looks to be stepping out pretty lively!”

It was something Noia was coming to learn. Things seemed to move so slowly, at sea!

Captain Amby turned to the third officer, who was officer of the deck. “If you would, set a course just north of the channel entrance. Slow to barely steerageway before we get closer than half a mile. Anchor when the water depth is forty feet.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” the third officer said, saluting.

“Lady Noia, if you would, join me at the side. That boat’s carrying the commander here, with new orders for all of us.”

There was another half a palm width wait, before the brigadier who commanded the fort climbed up. He saluted Captain Amby and Noia. “We need to talk privately, Captain. You and I and Lady Noia.”

“Yes, sir. Please, come this way.” Captain Amby led the other two to his cabin.

“I have a change of orders for you, Captain. I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

“Lately bad news seems to be all we hear,” Captain Amby replied.

“Yes. Well, the new King in Tenosh has besieged Zimapan. He landed a hundred thousand or so soldiers north of the city, and brought up a quarter million from the south. So far there doesn’t seem to be any sign that they plan on storming the city, but the Grand Marshal and a hundred thousand of our soldiers are trapped there.”

Amby winced. “Can we supply them?”

“Probably, but the fact is that if they decide to storm the city, one of these days there will be nothing there but rubble. Xyl would probably lose a million men in the process, but he’s got them to lose. We don’t have a hundred thousand soldiers to spare.”

“What am I to do?”

The general laughed. “Well, you will significantly enhance my defenses here. As soon as you are anchored close ashore, we’ll start transferring your guns, shot and fireseed to land. I will go from sixty-eight cannon to a hundred and ten. You can keep the mortars for self defense.”

“We’ll not be able to defend against much,” Captain Amby said reasonably.

“I’ll send along a couple of spare mortars as well, if you like. They’re a chancy weapon from a ship unless you are anchored.”

“That they are!” Captain Amby agreed. They’d tried firing the mortars at sea. To say that they were a mixed blessing was being kind. They only worked well if you were becalmed or anchored.

“You will also go through your crew. Lady Noia and her party will remain aboard, and will not be figured in your calculations. You will then release to me all of your people that are above the bare minimum to work the ship.”

Amby swallowed. “We’re going to Zimapan empty?”

“You will have some crates, boxes and barrels we’ve got. You will have to fill them with seawater or something, to keep them stable. Those go to Zimapan. Once there, you will take off as many of our soldiers as you can crowd below decks. You must look like an unarmed cargo vessel going in, Captain, and an empty one coming out.

“They’ve done some testing in Harphax City. You’ll be taking out six hundred men, Captain. You’ll need rations for just your crew until you get there and a small amount for safety. They will supply their own stores in Zimapan. Unload everything here that you won’t need for this mission.”

The general waved southwards. “The small ship at anchor? It’s called a ketch. You are to take her in tow. You will keep well out to sea until you are just south of Xiphlon. Lady Noia and her people will board the ketch and head for the Xiphlon. You will turn south at that point and staying very far out to sea, go south until you are southeast, I repeat, southeast of Zimapan, turn northwest and come in that way.”

“Will we be opposed?”

The brigadier shrugged. “They didn’t burden me with the answer to that question. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that the Great Oceans are just that: huge. If you are careful, if you time your approach, you should be able to slip past any guards. I’ll leave those details to you.”

Noia drew herself up. “I realize I have orders to return to Baytown, General, Captain. But in good conscience, this experience would be highly valuable.”

“It will take a moon or more,” Captain Amby said roughly. “Your people need ships, Lady Noia. What if they land troops like this near your city of South March and besiege it? How can your people defend themselves?”

“I had thought that the fighting wasn’t going to start this year,” Noia said firmly. “It was one thing to visit and leave quickly, but with fighting going on? It’s like turning my back on hospitality.”

“Well,” the general said with a genial grin, “That’s all well and good, Lady Noia. There are, however, these things we receive from our superiors called ‘orders.’ I could be wrong, but the ones I’ve just delivered Captain Amby upset him far more than the fact you have to go home as fast as possible.”

“Mace of Galzar, yes!” Captain Amby exclaimed.

“But, like the captain, like me, Lady Noia, you will do your duty as ordered by my king and yours.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, knowing that there was no way she could ever win such an argument.

“Good! Captain, you can hang lights in your rigging, so we can work through the night?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then we will do that. Get with your logistos and go over the necessary supplies and let me know if you need anything. As I said, the soldiers will have their own food stocks and cooking equipment, that will come aboard with the troops at Zimapan.”

“I understand.”

“I will leave you to get to it, then.” He shook hands with Captain Amby, then with Noia. Then he was back in his boat, rowing back towards the shore.

Captain Amby turned to Noia. “If you would, Commander. An officer’s call in my cabin, in half a finger’s width. Please pass the word.”

“Yes, sir!”

Noia had never heard of anything like what happened next before. The men, hearing of the soldiers trapped in Zimapan, worked like demons. Cannon were unshipped, swayed up on jury-rigged cables and lowered to barges to be rowed ashore. Shot and fireseed were loaded into nets and lifted away as well.

It was not lost on Noia that those chosen to go ashore made sure their friends who remained aboard _Three Hills_ had their personal weapons. When the sails finally shivered into place and the wind began to push the ship south, those few left aboard sank to the deck, exhausted, sleeping in place.

When they rounded the peninsula of Hos-Bletha, everyone was recovered. Captain Amby had no intention of following the shoreline. He simply aimed _Three Hills_ at the right place south of Xiphlon.

The days raced past, until a half moon later Noia saluted Captain Amby for the last time, and then climbed down to the ketch, followed by Trilium, Tanda Sa, Phelen and two dozen others. To her surprise the little ship was surprisingly handy, plus it ran fast, particularly downwind.

They were just a few miles past the Great River’s mouth when the lookout called, “Captain! Boats putting out from the banks, two from each side!”

Noia had slowed as much as she dared. She looked at the boats and decided they meant to intercept her. “Phelen! Strike the mainsail! Trilium! Prepare to put the helm over!”

Sure enough, a cannon fired from one of the boats, the ball skipping well off to seaward.

“Kill the way!” she commanded. “Keep the sails aloft, keep an eye on how we drift!”

She turned to Phelen. “Signal them, if you would.”

Their mirrors flashed, more mirrors came in reply.

Phelen turned to her. “They want us to anchor over towards the south side of the channel. They’re sending us an officer. They wanted to know where we’re from. I told them Harphax City.”

Noia laughed. “Didn’t believe you, did they?”

“No. But this ship could make the trip, easily.”

“Perhaps. Did you and Tanda Sa finish with the rough plans for the ketch?”

“Yes, Lady!”

“Well, let’s move to the southern side of the river. Keep an eye out for shallow water and we will anchor.”

Trilium had joined them and he laughed. “Lady Noia, you can’t see anything in this river unless it sticks out of it.”

“Well, go slow and take soundings! It’s not as if we didn’t practice that a time or two aboard _Three Hills_!”

The officer who was rowed to their side had an odd thing in his hand. Noia wasn’t sure how it worked, but his voice was much louder than she expected.

“You say, Harphax City! I say not! I charge you, in the name of the High King to tell the truth!”

“I am Lady Noia, rightful Countess of North Port, the Kingdom of Zarthan. We are out of Harphax City. We stopped, briefly at Blassdorf but we didn’t go ashore. Our ship is currently on another mission.”

The man blinked. “Lady Noia? Well, lower me a ladder. You swear you haven’t been south of Chalpai?”

“No, we were never near there, I swear.”

The man climbed the ladder. Noia blinked in shock. He had only one arm. Still, he climbed the ladder well enough.

“Lady, is there a place we can talk?”

She led the man to her small cabin. It did have the virtue of a roof, although a door would have been nice, too.

The officer looked around. “Not much, is it?”

“No. What do you have for me?”

“In a bit, I will go above deck and signal the watchers. One of them will go upriver, and get things in motion. Tomorrow, early, the tide will turn and I will guide you upriver. Late tomorrow afternoon, we’ll land on the west bank. A special convoy has been prepared for you and your people. You’ll go northwest, to an even newer town than Kingstown, this one is, get this,” he laughed, “Princetown.”

“Wonderful. The High King really knows how to pick names,” Noia said, with some sarcasm.

“Yes. Lady Noia, there is fell news from the south.”

“We heard. Zimapan in besieged.”

“That too. My lady, I mean, really fell news. Plague has broken out in King Xyl’s Heartlands. We got the word a moon quarter ago. They expect it to start in Tecpan any day. Within two moon quarters after that in Zimapan and Xipototec.”

Noia turned pale. A plague had gone through North Port in her grandfather’s time–people still talked about it.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Proceed as you were ordered. Just that you will be making the trip even faster than before. The plague will slowly spread north; we have no idea how fast. Lord Tuck sent a description on how to treat it, and the High King has confirmed it. But still...it’s hard to wait, not knowing when it’s going to come.”

“I understand. So, we go west?”

“Yes, Lady Noia. Tomorrow you will be at the steam puller terminus on the west bank of the Great River. The trip to Kingston is now two days, and the steam puller road goes another two hundred miles west. That’ll be another day. A moon quarter from now, you’ll be in the saddle, headed for Outpost.”

“Kingston? You mean Kingstown?”

“That’s too long, Lady Noia. We shortened it. The same thing for Princetown–now it’s Princeton.”

Noia grimaced. “In Zarthan if the king decides to call a town ‘Frog’ everyone hails the new name. Change it?” She shook her head in wonder.

“And we have a High King who says that he didn’t choose the names, that they were picked by courtiers, seeking to flatter him. Change is good, the High King tells us.”

Noia laughed. “So it is.” She patted the rail of the little ketch. “One thing. This is a tidy little ship, and she runs really well downwind. She should be out on the water, sir. She could take maybe thirty men away from Zimapan.”

“My lady, I’m sorry, but details of the relief of Zimapan are secret. It could also carry several tons of supplies to the city.”

She bobbed her head, remembering what the brigadier at Blassdorf had said.

IV

Legios looked around him, at the quiet bustle of the hospital. He was preternaturally aware of the world around him. It was an odd feeling. He reached down and with the lightest, feathery touch, stroked his abdomen. There was no pain. He didn’t really remember the pain, but he surely remembered he’d felt it! He had no idea how long he’d lain here, hanging by a hair between life and death, but it seemed implausible that Galzar would claim him now that his head was clear.

“Priest,” he said, his voice gravel.

One of the passing priests of Galzar stopped and looked at him. “You’re awake and aware! Captain, that is a very good sign!”

“I feel fine, priest.”

He shook his head. “Captain, you’ve been in that bed more than a moon and a half. You will want to take it easy at first. Of course...” he stopped and looked away.

“Of course what?” Legios asked.

“This is a military hospital. Lady Lydia has decreed that none may enter or leave until they are fully ready to return to duty. Priests and helpers, not at all.”

That sounded very arbitrary to Legios. “Lady Lydia? And the countess? What did she say?”

“Captain, the countess is sick. So is her husband. Lady Lydia isn’t. Some have died, sir. Not so many, not yet. We still hope for the best.” He lowered his voice. “The word from the south speaks of catastrophe, unmeasured in the history of man. Millions have died and everyone is sick.”

“And me?”

“You, sir? If you’re awake and feeling well, then you should live.”

“Did they catch the woman who did this to me?”

Again the priest looked him steadily in the eye. “Yes. She’s sick, too. Captain, outside this hospital, nine of ten are sick. All that comes to us is food and water. We boil them both for hours. The food isn’t tasty; the water is flat and awful. But none within these walls have sickened from the plague.”

Legios started to sit up, and almost at once realized that the reason he felt normal was simply because he was lying still. Even sitting partially upright left him gasping for breath.

Then it hit him. Plague. The countess and her husband were sick. “Lady Judy...you said she’s sick? Her husband? How are they?”

“Lady Judy is very strong. She was sick for a day and a half and is now recovering. Lord Gamelin...it was harder for him. He appears to be recovering, but it is still too early to be sure. My fellow priests, out in the city, tell me that most people respond well to the treatment. At first, Lady Judy and Lord Tuck said one in ten might die. Now we think it might be one in fifty.”

“And the duke?”

“He never got sick, Captain. About a tenth of the people don’t. Tanda Havra and her son didn’t get sick either. In Xipototec, perhaps one in a hundred will die. I won’t say there is dancing in the streets of Baytown, Xiphlon and Hostigos, but there is a great sense of relief.”

“Who do I know who’s died?”

“Those who die are mostly the children and the old. However, with proper care, even Captain Vosper is doing better than his master. Some people just seem more susceptible than others. The Mortar brothers never got sick.”

Legios put it together. The weak and infirm died easiest...which meant that’s why the military hospital was running on its own. A disease like that in here? It would reap a great many men!

“Captain, one important thing. We’ve learned that a person needs about a moon quarter of recovery for each day they were very sick. Lady Judy has six more days of rest ahead of her. She has commanded that all people will observe the guidelines for recovery, including her. Lord Tuck has also made it mandatory. 

“Captain, it will take you about a half moon to get fit again. Lord Gamelin has been sick seven days, sir. It is very bad.”

“Heavy Weapons?”

“Captain Gryllos commands them now. He did not get sick, sir. However, nearly everyone else did except him. His senior aide, like Lord Gamelin, seems to have been more susceptible than most. Our brother priests fear for the young man’s life.”

“I can’t spend half a moon here,” he told the priest, trying to sound reasonable. “Not with what’s going on outside.”

“Captain, a dozen men here were nearly recovered from their wounds. They volunteered to help with the sick. Sir, none of those men live today. Zero. You have to face this as strong as you can be, sir, or you die.”

Legios couldn’t fault the warning, nor was he stupid to try to pretend he wasn’t as weak as a kitten.

“Captain, one last thing. We don’t know for sure what is going on in the Heartlands of King Xyl. We do know that it is bad, sir. Very bad. The plague had taken hold before the word arrived on how to treat it. People were too afraid to listen. The plague spread like a grass fire on a windy day. We’ve heard tales of civil disturbances, huge crowds marching here and there.

“We keep the refugees in the barracks where our soldiers were once housed, plus there is a large tent camp as well. Our soldiers are ruthless about sanitation requirements. If they catch you voiding other than in the latrine, you’d better be near death from the plague. Otherwise, they put you on the road. It’s a very harsh regimen, sir, but more than eight of ten of those survive, even if they arrived in the early days of their sickness. Of course, without treatment, those not in the early days die. All of them.”

“Priest, it will be the hardest thing in the world to lie here, recovering and doing nothing. Yet, of what use am I dead?”

“Exactly, sir! Please, rest, now. You’ve taken a serious wound that would have killed most men. You’ve lived. Don’t squander your life, sir, by rushing things! There might have been danger a moon ago that King Xyl was coming north, but not now. Assuming he even survives.”

After that, each day Legios felt better...unless he took a few moments to dwell on how stupid he’d been about Maya. But everyone told him that while she wasn’t dead yet, that had to be because there was a lot going on, but fear not, the countess would get around to her at some point of time.

On his eighth day awake, he was startled when he saw Short Mortar standing in his door. “Captain, are you up to a visitor?”

“Yes! Yes! Of course! Tell me what’s happened with Heavy Weapons!”

Short shook his head. “I don’t have a lot of time, sir. And right after Captain Gryllos took command, he turned Big and me loose. I command the Hostigi mortar contingent now, over the good Captain Gryllos, while Big commands the Mexicotál mortars.”

He cleared his throat. “Sir, the plague has entered this hospital. We’ve cleared out the more sorely wounded; we moved them with men who have been sick and have recovered. You don’t seem to get it twice. That’s what I’m here for, sir. In a finger width a half dozen men will arrive to carry you to the new infirmary. The plague is relatively easy to isolate, if you act quickly and take a lot of precautions.”

Legios realized it wasn’t funny, but it was hard not to laugh at it. “I have an orderly who stands next to me after I visit the latrine, telling me to wash better.”

“Sir, if you wash better, you don’t get sick. It’s just that simple. Shake hands with a man, turn around and wash your hands. Walk down a dusty street, and you stop at one of the community kettles of hot water and wash your face and your hands.” He grinned. “At least, that’s what they tell me. The fact remains, I am careful and I haven’t been sick. Neither has Big. Big’s wife got sick, but she was better in a few days.”

“A demon who bit your brother would fare no better than anyone else who tried to bite Big Mortar.”

Short Mortar nodded, a huge grin on his face. “That’s so, sir.”

A half dozen soldiers with a litter arrived in the hallway and Short Mortar quickly supervised loading Legios into it, then they were away. They didn’t carry him far, perhaps two hundred yards, to a mud-brick building that looked a lot like Lady Talu’s house, but obviously wasn’t. He ended up in an open-air veranda for a short time, before a bed was readied for him.

Short Mortar came a little while later. “You were lucky sir, I tell you true. In the first days, when we didn’t know what to expect, when you saw how sick men were...a lot of men felt like running. Captain Gryllos steadied them, sir. And in those days, I mean, we have never fought a battle like this one! There were days an entire company would fall sick within a finger width. It scared the pee out of everyone and that didn’t help!

“Slowly, sir, we realized that getting sick was unpleasant, but if you listened to the priests, you’d live. Sir, you don’t know how many times I heard one man turn to another and say, ‘The priests kept Captain Legios alive. They’ll keep us alive, too!’

“And it worked.”

“You said it went worse for King Xyl.”

“A lot worse, sir. For the first moon, we got a fair number of refugees, particularly from Zacateca. That city’s now a ghost town, sir, haunted by a few lucky survivors. They fight over crusts of bread.

“After that, there weren’t many. If you got sick, you died, as simple as that. If you were fatigued from traveling fast in the desert, you died. It’s been a half moon since anyone has heard anything from the south. The last reports were confused. Some of the people had risen in support of the God-King, some had risen in support of the old priests, and some just seem to be trying to free themselves. But, as I said, of late, nothing.”

Short Mortar saluted him and left. Legios contemplated that if Short was commanding all the Hostigi mortar companies, it should have been the other way around.

Five days later he was surprised when Countess Judy and Lady Lydia appeared at his door. “Captain,” she told him, “please don’t get up on my account.”

“Countess, I lay around in bed, because otherwise the priests start clucking like mother hens. I’m almost fully fit.”

“How close is that almost to fully fit?”

“I don’t think I’ll be running very far with a mortar tube on my back for another moon or two, but I can walk four times around the courtyard and I feel fine. I can run about twenty steps and then I don’t feel fine. Every day, though, I get better.”

“I have a job for you, and I’m sorry to have to ask you, but you are the most senior officer I have that isn’t flat on his back still, or not crucial to keeping things on an even keel here. You understand that right now, my first and foremost goal is to keep things on an even keel?”

“Of course, Countess! That’s why we’re here! To protect these people!”

She nodded. “Last night, one of the Ruthani scouts, Shuria, returned from Zacateca. Eight days ago about a hundred thousand infantry, ten thousand cavalry and a train with hundreds of cannon occupied the city. There was also a huge train of women and children. He said it took three days for the column to enter the city. There was some shooting the first day, but after that, none.

“The important thing is that he recognized General Cambon at the front of that column, riding next to a man who was older, but as Shuria told me, could have been his twin, except for being a little stockier and his hair was white. Now, last I heard, King Xyl had brown hair, but stranger things have happened.”

“You want me to travel with Shuria and observe?”

“No. Shuria has the plague. I was fairly upset with him, but he got it three days after he departed the area around Zacateca. It’s not his fault, I’m sure. No, I’m going to send you there with Lady Maya.”

Legios almost fainted. “Countess?” He couldn’t help wanting to be sick to his stomach hearing the woman’s name. He knew she was still alive and a prisoner, but this?

“Yes. I understand your surprise and I can understand your anger at seeing her let go. But tell me, Captain, if after a battle where you were wounded, if you were talking with a captured officer and you discovered it was he who shot you, would you be angry at him?”

“On the battlefield, it is the will of Galzar, who is struck by his mace and who is not. But I wasn’t on the field of battle, Countess. I was being a fool, telling her to keep a watch on her mother, who I suspected was a spy.”

“No, Lady Talu was a woman who was faced with a choice that few would have chosen to make differently. Her husband and real daughter were dead and King Xyl’s soldiers found her hiding in a closet. Instead of killing her, though, they told her she could continue to live in the style she had, just so long as she did what the real spy told her to do and say. That was Lady Maya. She is, Captain Legios, the third of that unholy trio. Xyl is the oldest, Cambon the middle son and Maya the younger sister.”

Judy waved at his bed, asking to sit.

“Of course, my lady!”

“Sorry, I’m still a bit fatigued after being sick. It’s not a picnic. Those three, when Xyl was twelve, Cambon eleven and Maya eight, hatched a plan to end the sacrifices, to overthrow the God-King and his priesthood. Actually, it was the other way around, Xyl wanted to be king, and realized that he could get the people on his side if the sacrifices were stopped and the priests killed.

“I want you to tell me honestly: can you deal with Maya as you would an officer of the enemy, who tried to kill you in battle? But who, under parole, is being returned to his own lines?”

He took a moment to think. “Yes. I promise, this time I won’t be a fool.”

“Elspeth and Freidal, Captain. Think of Elspeth and Freidal. Don’t go making broad statements that you might find yourself regretting sometime in the future.”

“If she doesn’t try to kill me again, I can.”

“That’s good, but you don’t have to worry about that. I’m sending Baron Hollar with you. When the baron walks into a room, Maya drops to her knees and presses her forehead into the dirt. Our good sergeant terrorized her during his questioning of her. When I heard who she was, though, we let up, quite a bit. But she is convinced the baron is Kalvan incarnate, here in Tecpan. A demon from the bottommost pits of hell.”

“And what am I to do in Zacateca?”

“You will return King’s Xyl sister to him. Then you will ask him some simple questions, pledging his honor for honest answers. Yesterday there was war between us. Is there war between us today? Will there be war tomorrow? Further, Duke Tuck permitted a number of priests from Xipototec to go to Tenosh, last fall. We’d be grateful to hear about their fates.

“And, of course, if he is reluctant, remind him that I told him the method that we used to save our people from the plague. Perhaps he might be a little grateful, and return any prisoners and captives north with you and Sergeant Hollar.”

“I can do that, Countess.”

“You’ll be traveling in Lady Maya’s remarkable carriage, so it shouldn’t be unduly wearying. There will be you, the sergeant, Lady Maya, a woman in Lady Maya’s employ, and another man to take care of the horses. We can’t spare more at this point in time, do you understand?”

“I do, Countess. My lady, how is Lord Gamelin?”

She shrugged. “He’s recovering, but he was sick for a relatively long time and relatively sicker than most. The priests have no idea how such people will fare. ‘They will have long recoveries’ is all they will tell me.”

“I hope he recovers quickly, my lady.”

“Well, they say not. I’ll be satisfied well enough if he lives. But, there is our duty, and he would be the first to tell me to do my duty, then worry about other things.”

“I will do as you ask, Countess.”

“Good. Baron Hollar will be here in a palm width to discuss this with you. He will take you to your new quarters.”

“I won’t be here?”

“No. I’m only here on sufferance.” She picked at the clothes she was wearing. “These belonged to someone else, were boiled for two palm widths in soapy water. They made me strip, wash all over three times, and then told me not to enter any room but yours.” She met his eyes. “A dozen men died at the old hospital. We got most out before they could get sick. This is still dangerous, and you are at double risk: you didn’t have the disease and you are weakened from your own wound.”

“I’d say I’ll be okay, but everyone seems to think I’m going to drop dead if I leave the shelter of the priests’ robes. I’m a soldier, Countess. I’ve stood on the field of battle and felt the breath of both bullets and cannon balls. I’ve seen men fall not much further from me than you are now. This is something I can do, and if not, there will be Sergeant Hollar, and if not him, then that nameless private of a horse-handler.”

“Your nameless private is a sergeant in Lady Lydia’s Field Intelligence Unit. But to you, he is and should remain a nameless private.”

Legios had to laugh then. “And Maya’s servant?”

“A friend she met here, and employed when she found another who thought the spectacle of the sacrifices to be very grand.”

Legios frowned. “I thought Maya opposed them.”

Lady Judy shook her head. “Captain, never try to figure out the motives of people who are intelligencers. It will give you headaches. You trust those who say they are on your side a little, distrust them a little, and distrust everyone else a lot.”

“Battle is cleaner.”

“It is, at least in the heat of the battle. Before and afterwards? Battles can be won on the field, Captain, then lost to the intelligencers and the fools. It is something you have to guard against.”

“So, Baron Hollar will be here later, and then we will be leaving,” Legios said.

“Yes. You will be taken to a house owned by the Kumiai sisters. They have this quaint notion that if you wash everything with corn whiskey, it works even better than soap. Not that they don’t use a lot of soap, too. Those quarters have never been occupied by anyone who has gotten sick, and the twins have scrubbed them as if their lives depended on it.

“Trust me, as soon as you’re gone, they’ll wash the room down again, and won’t use it until you’re back safe from Zacateca.”

The next morning, Legios boarded the carriage he’d first seen almost a year before. Such a long year! Maya nodded to him but looked away almost at once. The woman with her seemed to be a rabbit, terrified of her own shadow. The private sat in the right front, with the horse’s reins, with Sergeant Hollar next to him. In the next seat were Maya and her maid, then Legios in the rear seat. There were supplies and two tents loaded into the small storage area behind Legios’ seat.

They went out the gate, down the road past the old barracks, now ringed with a fence of mud bricks, just three feet high, then down the road. After two miles they came to a guard post on the road. Legios cast an experienced eye over the layout.

Obviously, while he’d been sick, there had been some serious problems. Perhaps a hundred men were in fighting positions around the guard post, there were two mortar sections on each side of the road, and a camp with hundreds of additional soldiers less than a hundred yards from the road.

They’d gone another mile when Sergeant Hollar spoke loudly to the driver. “How is it handling?”

“You were right, Sergeant. Putting rocks in the false bottom makes it ride much better.”

Sergeant Hollar turned to Maya. “I hope you have as easy a time spending those rocks in Zacateca, Maya, as you did spending the last cargo in Xipototec and Tecpan. Countess Judy decided that since it was probably your older brother’s money, she’s used what’s left of it to fund two new artillery batteries.”

Maya looked away. Legios couldn’t see her face, but he could tell from the set of her shoulders that she was afraid. For an instant he felt sorry for her, then he remembered the knife, He remembered the cold, cold feeling of fear for palm width after palm width laying in the dark, alone and knowing that her knife stroke had killed him. His focus had been on one thing only: living long enough to tell someone who had betrayed him, who had slid a knife into his unsuspecting belly.

Sorry for her! Hah! That was insane, no matter what Lady Judy said about soldiers in battle.

That evening they stopped and made camp in the last light of the setting sun. Legios looked around, realizing where they were. “Forty miles! And to think, I listened to you, Sergeant Hollar, when you told me this carriage was a wreck, and couldn’t be expected to last another mile!”

“Aye, Captain. I’ve learned, as you, that appearances can be deceiving, that you have to pay careful attention to details.”

Maya lifted her chin. “Taunt me as you will. You tortured me! For days and days!”

“And I spent two moons, nearly,” Legios told her, “so sick I didn’t know night from day. I slept, I think, most of it, but I don’t really know because I don’t remember but a flash here, and a flash there. Two moons.”

Again she turned away. They chewed jerky in silence. After a bit, Legios turned to Sergeant Hollar. “I have to admit, I understand about plague and all of that. But what did they do to this jerky?”

“Soaked it in corn whiskey, Captain,” the private volunteered. “It tastes terrible, but it does warm your belly!”

Legios looked at the innocent piece of jerked beef. “I’ll be damned.”

“Chew three pieces of jerky at once, Captain, and you’ll be blind drunk,” Sergeant Hollar told him. “This is from the Kumiai sister’s private stock. Like a lot of people of Tecpan, they are ever so grateful that their countess led them to safety from the plague, that their duke knew what to do.”

Maya spoke up. “I hate you all, do you understand?”

Sergeant Hollar laughed. “No love lost here, either.”

“Tell me where you are taking me!” she demanded.

Sergeant Hollar glanced at Legios. Legios was aghast, they hadn’t told her? That was really low! Okay, she’d tried to kill him, but it was clear from her wariness around Sergeant Hollar that she was terrified of him.

“We are taking you to your brothers at Zacateca,” Legios told her.

He saw her freeze and for the first time that day, turn to stare directly at him. “Xyl? Cambon? They’re in Zacateca?”

“Yes. About a half moon ago, they entered the city with a lot of soldiers, plus quite a few women and children,” Legios told her.

“I thought that tonight you’d stand me up in the desert and shoot me and then leave my body for the animals.”

“Like you left me?” Legios said, trying to sound like it was no big deal.

“No, Maya. Cambon allowed Lady Judy to withdraw without a battle, in exchange for information about the plague. You, now, are another bargaining chip. We have no idea what’s gone on in your brother’s lands, once the plague got going,” Legios continued.

“A bargaining chip?” she asked, sounding dazed.

“A small bargaining chip,” Legios told her. “Of no importance to us. You’ve done to us all the hurt you are capable of. Now, you will help us and it will be over between us. If you ever come into our lands again, Lady Judy has made it clear: you are to be killed on sight. No warning, no parley, no nothing. Killed.”

“Please lady,” the maid said. “If they aren’t going to kill you, does that mean I have to give the ring back?”

“No, Francix, no. I told you it was yours, and it remains yours. If I go to my brothers, it will not be important. If they are playing with me before they kill me, it will not be important. Don’t tell them where you’ve hidden it, though, unless he asks.” She nodded at Sergeant Hollar. “Then just tell him.”

Two more camps, and then they approached the city gates of Zacateca. Legios looked the city walls over as they got closer. Sergeant Hollar, an expert in getting a parley, had his rifle raised butt-first in the air, while the driver had both hands held high. All of them had two of the new shotguns, but not many shells, in case they were captured or killed and their weapons taken.

There were a lot of men on the wall, a lot of artillery pieces with crews. Bugles rang out and then stopped. A short while later two men came forward, alone.

“The one on the left is Cambon,” Sergeant Hollar told Legios. “I don’t know the one on the right.”

“General Thanos, my brothers’ tutor,” Maya volunteered.

“Thanos?” Sergeant Hollar sniffed. “A good case of the pupils outstripping their teacher!”

The two men stopped. General Cambon spoke to Legios. “That is my sister. Please, may I see to her?”

“No,” Legios told him.

Cambon had started to dismount. He stopped, staring at Legios in surprise.

Legios held up his shotgun and lowered it so that it pointed directly at Maya’s head. “Two promises from you first, sir. First, our safe conduct, from Tecpan to Zacateca and back.”

“Agreed.”

“Second, that you will listen to what I have to say, and then give your most considered thoughts on the questions I will ask.”

“Agreed.”

“Then, General, the back-stabbing bitch is all yours.”

That got Legios a dirty look, but Cambon dropped to the ground and met his sister with a hug. There were tears in his eyes, Legios saw and more in hers.

“We thought you dead,” Cambon told her.

“As I thought you were as well.”

His face grew very long. “Sister, what has happened to our people! Every morning I greet Xyl with ‘How could you know they’d betray us like this?’ to keep him from killing himself.”

“They betrayed us?” Maya stared at Legios. “They caused this?”

“No, no!” Cambon told her. “Not the men of the High King!

“Xyl heard that the High King was sending ships exploring the vastness of the Great Eastern Ocean. We knew of a few islands, then a vast nothingness. But the High King’s ships seemed to say that he knew something we didn’t, so Xyl sent ships much further east.

“One came back, two moons ago. Only a few of the crew were still alive, they’d suffered from the plague. They’d talked to strange men on the far side of the sea. The men there are black, like the night. They file their teeth to points, their hair is strange...everything about them is strange! But they showed us they were like men everywhere! Their king said he would send a respected counselor to treat with Xyl.

“At first, the crew didn’t see anything odd about him, except that he wasn’t comfortable at sea. Then his insides turned to water. After that was when they all got sick, and most died, including this ‘counselor.’”

He hugged his sister. “They lied; Xyl is sure of it. They sent a man with the plague to us on purpose, to kill us.”

“That’s monstrous!”

Legios thought the same thing, but didn’t speak because he was quite sure that Lady Judy and everyone right up to the High King would want to know all of this! Better to listen, and be able to report later!

“I talked to Lady Judy, sister. She spoke the truth to me; we owe her our lives. But just that, no more, although it wasn’t her fault. The Heartland is gone, sister. Fires burn night and day; smoke pillars into the air every few miles, carrying away the souls of tens of millions of our people.

“In the middle of the hell, we started getting a handle on it. The treatment Countess Judy and Duke Tuck told us about works; we could have saved more than half! But the remnants of the priests, and a few by-blows of the old God-King rose up, saying it was lies, lies, all lies. That it was the old gods telling us we’d not kept our faith with them and the gods were punishing us.

“It was touch and go for a few days, then someone realized the truth: if they fought for the priests and won, the sacrifices would return. And all around them, as far as the eye could see were piles of the dead, all burning.

“The people went crazy, Maya. Crazy. Some would kill for the joy of it; some would kill because they’d lost all hope. But they kept killing and killing and killing.

“We had been forced from Tenosh early on and kept retreating north. When the final catastrophe struck, we simply turned our faces from the Heartland and rode north. The insanity preceded us, sister. We fought dozens of small battles to get here. Hundreds of our soldiers died, but it least it was in battle, not from their guts turning inside out.”

Legios was only too pleased when Maya spoke up. “How many died, brother? Surely not all?”

“All that counts. Perhaps one in a thousand lives; I doubt if it’s as many as one in a hundred. Zacateca had nearly a half million people and soldiers, before the plague. We had to kill about sixty, and there are another two hundred starving beggars. The rest are dead or fled into the desert, which means the same thing.”

He looked at her, studying her carefully. “They didn’t treat you well, did they sister?”

Legios stood up and got down, still a little gingerly, from the coach and walked up to them. Without a word he used one hand to lift his tunic, the other to push down his trousers.

Cambon spoke violently. “If you expose yourself to my sister, I’ll kill you where you stand! Truce be damned!”

The scar revealed, Legios simply stood still, saying nothing.

After a second, General Cambon looked into Legios’ eyes. “An ugly wound.”

“I got it from Maya. I went to warn her that I thought her mother was a spy. She told me the truth, after putting a knife into my belly. Yes, we tortured her. I spent two moons unconscious.”

“Brother,” Maya said, “this is war, right? You told me that a thousand times. You told me that I should stay home and let you and Xyl take the risks. I did something I didn’t want to do, because I thought it was my only way to do my share of duty to our people. Oh, brother! Was I ever stupid! I ran at once and they caught me just as the sun rose high in the sky the next day! They caught me easily! I missed two clear shots at their scouts; one was no further from me than you!

“Yes, they tortured me. I did try to kill Legios. This is Legios, brother, the man who commanded the Heavy Weapons Company in the war, the man who chased down General Denethon.”

“Your questions, Captain?” General Cambon said, his voice clearly showing a great battle to control it.

“Countess Judy says that when she met you, we were at war. You changed that. Are we at war, today?”

“No. You have more soldiers in Tecpan, than we have here. I don’t know how many of your people survived, but when we treated our men, more than nine of ten survived.”

“General, the numbers varied. There are a lot of dead children in our lands, nearly half of the dead. A lot of the old are gone as well, more than half. Healthy adults? Less than one in a hundred died. Less than two hundred soldiers.”

“The Olmecha no longer have the ability to make war. If you wait a short time, my brother will come and you can talk to him. You understand that both of us will not be present at a parley? That my sister will be taken to the city and protected?”

“I understand.”

Cambon turned to the maid. “You have my gratitude for serving my sister in her hour of need. Now, I have to tell you, that it is my painful duty to ask if you are loyal to King Xyl and the people of Olmecha?”

The maid looked at him, then looked at Maya. “I don’t know. She treated me fairly, but she was always talking about how wonderful the sacrifices were. My parents went up a pyramid, my little brother and an older sister. I think my sister went to the priests, because while they took her, she never climbed the pyramid...we never saw her again, either.”

She lifted her chin. “I hate the God-King, I hate the priests, and I sought to be her friend so that if she was working against Tecpan, looking to bring us a new pyramid...then I would plunge my knife into her heart.”

General Cambon bowed to the maid. “You are an honest woman. I have found that the followers of the High King almost always are. It is up to you. As children, we watched many climb the pyramid. We talked to our father, fearful as children are, about how we didn’t want to climb the pyramid. He laughed and told us that we were the children of a famous general, who was himself the son of a famous general, married into an old and noble family.

“We told him that didn’t seem fair and were beaten for what we said.” He grinned. “So, we started plotting. Trust me on this, woman. My sister hates the sacrifices and the priests more than you. We all knew we were exempt; you might think it’s terrible to have to climb a pyramid, but it’s worse when you watch someone climb in your place.

“If you ever hear me again say anything positive about the sacrifices, sacrifice me yourself,” Maya told the woman. “I swear, as Legios did not lift a hand to defend himself when I struck, I will go meekly to my fate as well.”

There was a bit more, and then Cambon and Maya departed. A finger width later, a white-haired version of General Cambon appeared.

“I have heard many good things about you, Captain!” Xyl told Legios. “My brother led our forces at the ridge, when we tried to trap Lady Judy the first time. Your mortar barrage caused enough damage that it took a full palm width before they could advance.”

Legios shrugged. “My duty.”

“General Thanos was also there. He took a splinter, here,” King Xyl mimed a wound on his arm. “It missed the tendons by a small, small distance. It also took him out of the battle.”

“It was battle, King Xyl.”

“It was. And I realize you have no reason to love my sister’s deed with regards to you, but she did what she thought she had to do, as a soldier in the service of her king. You might think it a personal betrayal, I might think it another of my sister’s occasional mistakes, but it was an act of war. You understand that I received a nasty note from the countess about that? About it being a declaration of war?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No. The raid my brother led towards Tecpan was the declaration of war. But all of that is meaningless now.”

He handed a piece of paper to Legios. “This is a copy of the map my ship commander made, when he was in the lands across the Great Eastern Ocean. It is my intention to use Zacateca as a base to retake the Heartland. As I get organized, we will start sending ships east once more. These ships will have cannon and will kill those people who did this to us. I intend to exterminate them as they tried to exterminate us.”

“So, I can tell the countess that there isn’t war between us any more?”

“You can tell Countess Judy, Duke Tuck and the High King. The war ended the day that ship made landfall. I can’t promise anything beyond two years from today, but until then, there is no war.”

“Two years,” Legios echoed. “You understand that I can’t agree to that, not on behalf of the High King? The countess told me, that on behalf of the Duke of Mexico, I could negotiate a ceasefire and arrange meetings to conduct a more formal arrangement.”

“Then you have my agreement. Ceasefire, truce, whatever it is you want. For two years; I cannot commit to more.”

“For two years then,” Legios agreed. “I’ll tell the countess and Duke Tuck. They will approve it.” Of course they would! He’d been told to hold out for a ceasefire of at least six moons! This was that and more! He smiled to himself. This was a good outcome!

“And captain, one last thing,” King Xyl said.

“Of course, sir.”

The king sank down to one knee and bowed his head. “On the behalf of my sister, I apologize for her deed against you.”

Legios laughed at that. “Because it wasn’t very smart.”

“Because it wasn’t very smart,” King Xyl agreed. “Perhaps more.”

Legios laughed again. “I hope you don’t think she and I could ever go back to what there was before?”

“No, of course not. But, soon I will sit down with Duke Tuck and probably Grand Marshal Hestophes and make a formal treaty. My sister wounded you, Captain. I’ve killed hundreds, perhaps a thousand of their soldiers. You think about who should be the angriest and the least trusting. You look at the agreement that we reach and decide for yourself about my sister’s sincerity and mine.”

“I’ll be sure to pass on everything you say, King Xyl.”

Xyl broke out into laughter. “You are either a much smarter man than you appear, or the biggest fool imaginable. I met General Denethon a few times before Three Hills. He was a solid, capable officer. He and you have a lot in common. Now, please, take my father’s carriage and haul yourself back to Tecpan. Take your time, Captain, because my eye tells me that you haven’t been plague sick but shortly you will be.”

He cocked his head to one side, then ran his hand through his prematurely white hair. “Do you know how I got this?”

“You were sick, King.”

“Yes, I was sick. On the first day I thought I was dead. I could not believe my body could produce such a quantity of foul-smelling waste! I was feverish and in spite of the ministrations of one of your priests of Galzar, I had trouble sleeping. Then I did, plagued by fever dreams. That’s when I realized something I’d learned as a boy. There is a common plant we grow, that, if you eat the flowers, causes extreme constipation. I woke up and told the priests of it. We learned that if a sufferer of the plague eats a flower from that plant at dawn, High Sun, sunset and midnight, they recover in a day, perhaps two. All of them.

“But it wasn’t in time to save my hair, even if it saved my life, the lives of my soldiers and their families.”

Legios met his eyes. “I’m tired, sir, and I apologize. I forgot one of the questions I was supposed to ask of you.”

“About the priests who came south?”

Legios nodded, feeling relieved.

“All but one live. The oldest priest of Dralm died. I swear to you, as I swore to his comrades and the other priests. In better times such a temple I will build as a monument to the man! He walked fearless among the sick and the dying, giving aid and comfort as best as he could. His last act was to give the water skin meant for him to a dying serf. That serf lived, Captain; that man lived, even as the priest died.”

Legios bowed his head. He’d learned early on that wasn’t just soldiers who could be brave.

King Xyl turned brisk. “I will ask Uncle Wolf to speak with you. You may speak with him alone; I will not make an issue of it.” He bobbed his head at Legios. “Captain, I tell you true, you should not talk to any of us further. If you can, strip naked, burn your clothes and wash thoroughly. If you come down with the plague you will surely die.”

“And the name of this plant?”

“Barberry,” he replied. “It grows in your lands as well, it’s used to make yellow dyes for cloth. The concoction tastes awful, it turns your mouth yellow, but keeps you alive.”

Legios didn’t laugh at that for quite some time.


	17. Conversation With a Cop

I

Gryllos had thought the night that the Gamelin came to tell him that he was to command the Heavy Weapons Company was the most exciting moment of his life, but this day was the same thing over again, only ten-fold more than the other.

He’d been having lunch with his officers when a messenger handed him written orders. “I’m sorry, sir, you have to read them quickly, then I’m to take them on to the next commander,” Gryllos had been told.

He read the two short paragraphs, and then reread them again, before handing the sheet back to the messenger. “We will begin at once, of course,” he told the corporal. The corporal saluted and started to leave.

“Corporal, what is this about?”

“They didn’t tell me, sir. Just that I’m to see all the commanders in the barracks and give them the same orders.”

The messenger was gone then, in a hurry to reach his next stop. Gryllos looked at his officers, all of whom were curious. “Tell the men they have a finger width to finish eating. They have another finger width to assemble with their gear. All of their gear. We are leaving the barracks and may never return.

“The third finger width, I want all of the fireseed, mortar shells, all of our logistics, every last bit, loaded in as few wagons as we can fit them in. Detail men to gather the horses and load the wagons. Only one driver per wagon, however.

“When that is done, the men will assemble with their personal weapons, a combat load of fireseed and shot, and the mortar sections will carry their mortars. A palm width, gentleman! We should be moving in a palm width.”

“Where are we going?” the senior aide asked.

Gryllos grinned. “Tecpan.”

“Why?” the hapless lieutenant asked.

“Lieutenant, use your imagination. Why do you think we’re leaving the barracks, outside the walls, and hustling inside the walls with everything we’ve got?”

The young man paled, as did some of the others. Then there was work to do and they did it.

Two of the mounted infantry companies were marching towards the city before the Heavy Weapons Company joined them, but the Heavy Weapons Company carried four times the gear and supplies than the mounted infantry did.

Inside the gate, a harried logistos conferred with a man that Gryllos recognized as the Alcalde, the headman of the city. In a few heartbeats Gryllos and his men were marching again. This time they went to a long wall of apartments that abutted the southern city wall.

Then came the real work. They were to camp on top of the building, which was some two hundred yards long and about ten yards wide. “Try,” the logistos had told him, “to keep your men in two thirds of the area. I want to billet the Special Intelligence Unit up there as well.”

So, the men were going to be tightly packed. Worse, there was no way to pitch tents on the roof, because it was made of baked bricks. In fact, Gryllos had grave doubts how long the bricks would stand up under men continually coming and going.

A palm width later General Count Gamelin appeared, riding his huge black, filthy-mean gelding. “Captain!”

Gryllos hurried to him and saluted.

“For now, you must simply obey your orders, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“You have the wagons parked here in the street with your ammunition and fireseed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Unload it, pile it up against the apartments, but don’t block the doorways. Then cover it up with tentage and post guards.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send men back to the barracks with the horses and bring back any wagon you can find. You are authorized to requisition any wagon you can lay your hands on. Don’t fight with other units requisitioning them, as there will be others. Bring them here as well.”

Gamelin waved at the apartment block. “Start men breaking up the wagons, assign forty or fifty or so to the duty. You can switch them off with the digging party. Cover the roof of the apartments with planks.”

“Yes, sir! How many wagons are we to dismantle?”

“For right now, any that you can lay your hands on.

“I want every other man in the company, including the officers, out in the street here. You will dig a latrine pit, three feet wide, six feet deep and as long as the apartment building down the middle of the street, centered on it. You will also cover it with planks when the digging is finished. Set up the shit holes at either end, one for men, one for women. Leave a couple of larger holes in the middle. They also have to be covered, but easy to open.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Last, but not least, I want you to ask the truly impossible from your soldiers. They aren’t to talk about why they are doing what they are doing. They aren’t to speculate at all.”

Gryllos grimaced. That was going to be easy enough to order, but impossible to enforce.

“Oh, and senior officer’s call at dawn, in the Council room, for captains and above.” He saluted and cantered off.

“Yes, sir,” Gryllos said to his superior’s back.

He put the best of his lieutenants on the detail to bring back more wagons, and considering his orders, asked them to grab any shovel that wasn’t nailed down. Then men were assigned to unloading wagons, and then breaking them up.

It was hot, heavy work, and when they’d finished, he truly hated his next orders, which were to start on the latrine pit. He had six mortar batteries of ten guns each; he set the men from three batteries to work at each end of the pit, then divided the infantry in two and set them, back to back in the middle, working towards the others.

He seriously regretted that the Mortar brothers weren’t there, seriously regretted that Sergeant Hollar was with one of the batteries in the field with the countess.

For the first time he realized that it was virtually certain that something had happened to Lady Judy’s column. He swallowed, and at the first sign of his men starting to flag, he played his trump card. “Men, they haven’t said why, and we are not supposed to ask questions. But the countess is counting on Heavy Weapons Company to lead the way–to do what we’re ordered, as quickly as we can.”

The men worked harder, and if he heard occasional snatches of conversation speculating about what was going on, he let it go. Most of the speculation was about an imminent attack, but he wasn’t sure.

If Lady Judy was in trouble, Count Gamelin would have every man and woman in the army preparing to go to her rescue. Every man and woman in the army was busy, but it wasn’t a rescue they were working on.

Two palm widths later the Mexicotál began to return from the fields. He wasn’t sure what had been said to them, but they joined in working on the latrine ditch without being asked. Gryllos cast an eye on the ditch. That was a lot of volume! If he remembered the stuff he’d learned about field latrines, this ditch alone could take care of every man, woman and child in the city for a moon. And it was clear this was just one of many being built around the city.

What kind of siege do you spend your first palm widths digging latrines for?

Later a heavily-laden wagon appeared, with two logistos sergeants aboard. “Captain Gryllos! Ten kettles!” the senior of the pair announced. “Sir, have your men take ten kettles. They are to be positioned, two at each end of the latrine, two more at each of the three entrances to the apartments. Sir, you must detail a party of your men, and such civilians as you require, to fetch water from the main fountain in the city square and only that fountain.

“The kettles are to be kept full of water at all times. You will station three men at each kettle, all day and all night. No one may leave the latrines without washing their hands in boiled water, commencing at sundown tonight. Tonight you will fire warning shots at any who refuse. Tomorrow at High Sun, you will shoot to kill.”

“And what are we to use for fuel?” Gryllos asked.

“Anything that will burn, that isn’t needed for combat operations. The civilians will be asked to contribute anything made of wood for the fires. When you run out of wood,” he waved at the temporary rope corral Gryllos had set up for the horses. “Dried horse dung, dried cow dung. Not human waste.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

The man stared at him for a heartbeat and Gryllos nodded. He’d figured it out, finally. There had been a time when every army in the world would have known instantly what the precautions meant. But the High King had changed that.

They exchanged salutes and Gryllos turned and looked over the company. He hadn’t done any of the work these men had, yet he felt just as weary as they did. He gathered up two of his battery lieutenants and gave one orders to fetch water, the second to set up a guard rotation on the kettles.

It was clear that most of the men had figured out what was going on. There was a nervousness that would ripple through them, then someone would say something quiet, grip and an arm or shoulder, and then the ripples would die away.

At dawn he was at the officer’s call and heard Count Gamelin explain in great detail. They had been told to take notes, and that Lady Lydia was preparing written instructions as well, as fast as men could copy the required orders.

General Gamelin explained to the officers, explained their particular roles, which was to keep order in an area about a quarter of a mile on a side. There was a mounted infantry company of about five hundred men also assigned.

The first cases of plague came three days later. By then, everyone knew the story and they took the matter seriously, but as calmly as they could.

After that, day-by-day, the situation grew steadily worse. Almost at once everyone had seen what the plague did to you. Yet, almost as quickly, it was clear that if you were treated, you had a good chance of survival. It took a few more days for it to sink in that while that held true for healthy adults, it didn’t hold for young children or the very old.

At first some of the civilians helped treat the sick, then too many of them were sick themselves and soldiers took up the load, until they too fell ill. Gryllos did everything his soldiers did, he had no idea how he avoided getting sick. Galzar or Dralm was looking over him, he suspected. Jumper got sick, but the Ruthani boy was like a steel spring. His worst symptoms lasted barely three palm widths and went away.

His older aide...well, Gryllos hadn’t had that much respect for the young man before, but the young man fought an epic battle against the disease, surprising every man in the company when he was still alive come each sunrise. Long before he was safely past the worst, men would come and help care for him, on their own free time.

Slowly, slowly, after a moon things started to improve. Hardly any more were falling sick; most of those sick were recovering. There were quite a few dead, in a city with more than two hundred and fifty thousand people crammed into it, and there was no doubt that the deaths of so many children had seriously hurt a great many people.

The most important thing, Gryllos thought one day, sitting near the main gate, watching the traffic flow past him, was that the city was together like it never had been. When they’d thrown off the God-King, they’d been united, but still, the soldiers of Hostigos were from afar, and even though they’d fought together, in truth the God-King’s generals had worked to defeat themselves harder than the people had.

Now, they were as one. Soldiers and civilians alike had labored for days under appalling conditions. There had been days where an entire battery of men would fall sick in a span of a few palm widths. Throw in the townsmen falling sick as well and it had made for long, long days for those who stayed on their feet.

He heard mutters and curses, a few shouts, and looked up. The famous carriage he’d seen and heard about was leaving the city. Captain Legios was in it, so was Sergeant Hollar, a woman Gryllos didn’t recognize and a woman he did...the one people were shouting angry imprecations at Maya, the traitor. For the life of him, he couldn’t begin to imagine why she was still alive, much less why she was leaving the city.

II

Gamelin sighed as the priest of Galzar helped him sit up. They brought him a thin beef soup, even though his body cried out for more food, something solid. The one time he’d chewed some jerky, though, he’d spent another day in agony as his insides turned inside out once more. Slow and steady, the priests told him and Gamelin could only nod; that last time had been close, very close.

Judy came in and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You live dangerously, lady wife!”

She shook her head. “I have an iron constitution, husband. The question is, do you?”

“Of course!”

“It has come time that we must talk, even though the priests say it is a bad idea.”

“Talking is something I can do,” he tried to reassure her. He’d been one of the first to fall ill and he was one of the last to recover. It wasn’t a distinction he was ever going to look back on and smile about.

“That’s good. Are you sure you’re a strong enough to stand another pretty solid shock?”

“No, I don’t want any more jerky. I may never eat jerky again.”

She dipped into her dress and pulled out a mirror, but held it away from him. “This isn’t going to be the easy, Gamelin. But, while it looks bad, it’s nothing.”

“What looks bad?” he asked.

Silently, she held the mirror before her and he looked into it. He swallowed hard. “Holy Dralm! I’m older than my father!”

He grinned at her, trying to think of a joke, something like Tuck would say. “How long was I asleep again?”

“Of those who have the fever for more than a few days, this happens to about one in a hundred. It’s not something Tuck, the High King or I have heard about, but Tuck, at least, says that sometimes it happened on the battlefield. The only thing that has changed, Gamelin, is your hair color.”

“It’s snow white! Even my father has some color left in his!”

“Well, now you and he can tell old people jokes together. There is more important news.”

He sighed. “How many died?”

“Here, we held solid, Gamelin. We had two hundred and sixty-one thousand five hundred and eighty-two souls in the city when the plague came. We lost nearly two thousand children below six years, another thousand of the elderly over sixty–and less than a thousand between those ages. Four thousand two hundred and sixty all told.

“Currently we have about seventy-five thousand refugees outside the walls. There were ninety thousand of them; one in four died. Of our lands, most towns and cities did well, including Xipototec and Zimapan.”

“And Zimapan’s siege?”

“Broken, which is part of the larger picture.

“The Olmecha have been destroyed. Perhaps half or two thirds died in the plague. The fabric of society broke down, and even more died of starvation and in the fighting that followed. There was a three- or four-way civil war going on at one time. Part of it is still going on. From Zacateca south, perhaps ten or twenty million still live. They are sick, they are hungry, and there’s still fighting going on, but not very hard.”

“King Xyl?”

“He survived. You and he can compare your new hair style.”

Gamelin grimaced.

“As we knew before the plague, Lady Maya is Xyl’s youngest sister. Lydia convinced me we should send her back to Xyl. Xyl moved in a lot of soldiers and their dependents into Zacateca a moon ago. There were probably less than a hundred people left alive in the city, Shuria reported.”

Gamelin contemplated that and looked at his wife. “We wanted to buy time. We never wanted to fight them, but we couldn’t live with the sacrifices. Xyl ended those, so really, there was nothing to fight about.”

“And now there is no fight with King Xyl at all; he’s agreed to a cease-fire.”

“How long?”

“Two years.”

Gamelin whistled softly. “Now that’s what I call a cease-fire!”

“Gamelin, the plague was deliberate.”

Gamelin paled, his hands twisted the sheet he was lying under. The fabric tore, weak as he was. “Let’s end the cease-fire and go clean him out! Let’s end this once and for all!”

“It wasn’t Xyl, and he understands it wasn’t us. You heard the reports that the High King has been sending ships across the Great Eastern Ocean, right?”

“To a less than friendly reception.”

“Xyl heard something about it, so he started sending his own ships out. The first one that came back had a envoy of a far distant king. That man had the plague. Xyl is sure that it was done deliberately. For what it’s worth, both Tuck and the High King agree.”

“And we thought Styphon’s scum were bad! This...this!” he stuttered, “Millions and millions of dead! A whole people destroyed!”

“Yes. The plague has burned out here, at least for now, but it will almost certainly continue spreading north. Outpost, the Ruthani, the Zarthani and Hostigos will all suffer from it. They have prepared and the experience we’ve gained will succor them greatly in their hour of need. They’re showing their appreciation by sending us a lot of goods we’d not normally have been able to afford. Horse drawn mills, grindstones...all sorts of things...except people, of course.

Gamelin nodded.

“We have the time we needed to get set to fight King Xyl. Except that it’s not very likely we will have to now. He had a lot to do, fighting his first revolt. Now, he has to fend off several revolts, plus regain control of his lands. His lands have been depopulated–he thinks that about one in a ten still live.”

“I understand. It’s like the first war, really. We killed so many of them it seemed unreal. It didn’t seem possible, yet I saw many of the bodies after the battles. Now, we’ve won another victory, even if it cost far, far more than the first time. But not much less than we expected.”

“Well, a couple of things. The plague hasn’t reached Chalpai and the troops besieging Zimapan in the south got the word about what to do to fight the plague in plenty of time. They are weak, but their formations survive.

“King Xyl has petitioned the High King to allow the quarter million men north of Zimapan to march south without hindrance. If we permit that, he will pull the bulk of his forces south of Zimapan back to Zacateca as well.

“He is having tremendous logistical problems feeding those men. He has made the case that it would be to our benefit to feed them while they are still in the north, so that if his logistics completely collapse, it will be well south of our lands. Tentatively, Tuck has agreed. We’re still waiting on the High King’s approval, but I imagine he’ll agree.”

“Those men north of Zimapan will get sick,” Gamelin observed.

“Yes, and the soldiers south of the city will take care of them when they do.”

Gamelin realized the point Judy had been assiduously avoiding. “Great Galzar! We’re going to keep more than a million of Xyl’s soldiers alive! That’s more than we’ve got in our army!”

“Yes. Like I say, we’re taking it slow and the High King is signing off on everything. Gamelin, trust me on this. While I haven’t talked to Xyl or the rest of his family personally about this, my people have. He has three goals right now. Saving his people and his soldiers, saving his kingdom, and then sailing east with every ship he can put his hands on to visit total destruction on those who did this to his people.”

Gamelin sagged back. “Galzar’s Mace! If I was feeling better, I think I’d join him!”

To his surprise, Judy nodded. “We will be able to keep casualties to a minimum in our lands, but that minimum is going to mean tens of thousands dead; a disproportionate number of those young children and family elders.

“Gamelin, the people here held a protest. Lydia organized it and it was very orderly, but it was the parents of dead children. They want the war with Xyl over, so they can go east and kill the bastards who killed their kids.”

Gamelin nodded, his mind racing.

“So, something extraordinary is going to happen. In three moons the High King is coming here, along with King Freidal, Tuck and you and I. There will be a smattering of the senior nobles of the affected kingdoms. Tuck thinks that southern Zarthan and Outpost will get hit this winter with the plague, Xiphlon next spring, with more of Zarthan. Anyone who comes here is not going to be permitted north of the plague line, not if they’ve been sick.”

Gamelin smiled at Judy. “Lady wife, you, Lady Lydia, and Duke Tuck have done so much! And here I lay, barely able to sit up.”

“Yeah, well, Tuck says if you’re not doing anything else, you can think. There’s a big debate right now. Some people want the kings and nobles to come with a lot of soldiers in their escort. Except, that’s going to mean a lot of sick people, plus those men are going to have to stay south for a while.

“Thus, there are those who think they should travel with relatively small retinues.”

It was on Gamelin’s lips to say he would opt for the small retinues, wishing the sickness on no man, that and where was the threat?

The answer to that were the ongoing plots against Zarthan. And what about the plot that had laid waste to heartlands and wrecked ruin on Mexico? Who was fighting King Xyl?

Judy nodded, recognizing that he understood. “Yeah, the plots. You don’t know the half of it.”

“What?”

“You remember my trip towards Zacateca? Where I was ambushed?”

“It would be hard to forget that.”

“Yes, well, it was General Cambon up there on that ridge, along with General Thanos. The reason they didn’t attack? Not what we thought at all. Cambon thought it was a trick, not believing I would walk into such a trap. You see the traitors weren’t working for him. In fact, he found their camp when he came down the hill after me. They were all dead, not a mark on them.”

Gamelin shook his head. This was awful! Someone plotting against the High King, Zarthan, Mexico, and it sounded like, King Xyl all at once? That was insane!

“And, get this. You remember the wagon convoy that was ambushed?”

“Yes, the one where the wagon guards and the Hostigi Sixth Mounted beat them rather handily.”

“With an assist from the Ruthani, don’t forget. Well, while Xyl wasn’t king for that, he was commander of their army. He never ordered the attack, had no knowledge of it until afterwards. The commander at Huspai ordered it. And when he was recalled to discuss it, he was found dead...poisoned apparently. At any rate, there wasn’t a mark on his body.”

Gamelin felt weak and tired. The priests had been right, this was really more tiring than he would have imagined. He smiled wanly. “I need to sleep, Judy. I’m so tired...” The world once again faded away and he slept.

He missed Judy turning to Lydia. “It was too much.”

Lydia shook her head. “Judy, Gamelin is a fine man, but even fine men would be unhappy to find out that they’ve been spoon-fed the news piecemeal to ‘protect’ them.”

“I suppose. He’s a stubborn bastard, when he wants to be.”

Lydia grinned. “Wait until the first time he goes outside and people on the street salute him, like they do the other White Hairs.”

Judy sounded frustrated. “I’ve developed a keen appreciation in the last three years of exactly how easy it is to start new legends.”

“Yes, plus you’ve developed a talent for telling people what to do and getting them to do it that I would never have expected. We were three equals, once upon a time. The best of friends. I have to wonder how we would have fared, if we’d stayed home.”

“Well, for one thing, you wouldn’t get to play Secret Agent, I expect.”

“Probably not. But, hey, consider the upside. Gamelin is going to have a little while to get used to the idea that we’re talking to King Xyl. Wait until he finds out who Legios’ nurse is! If he thinks he’s confused now, he’ll be walking around in circles muttering after that.”

Judy had to smile, because she knew Gamelin well, and he was going to walk around in circles, muttering when he heard that news!

III

Tanda woke, aware that something was different in their bedchamber. She listened with her ears; she watched with her eyes, her every sense attuned to the moment. She turned her head and saw an undraped female form standing in a glow of moonlight six feet from the bed.

She quietly nudged Tuck, while watching the other woman carefully. Even as Tuck placed his hand on her shoulder, Tanda’s brain etched a border around the woman’s face, and then hung the portrait on a wall. The wall was Manistewa’s private office at Outpost and the woman’s portrait was a featured there prominently: Chief of the Paratime Police, Hadron Dalla.

“Chief Hadron,” Tanda said softly. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d recognize me.”

“If you’d put some clothes on, perhaps Tuck will recognize you, too. At the moment, I think he’s drooling and paying only marginal attention to your face.”

Tuck leaned down and lightly nipped Tanda’s shoulder.

“I’m just trying to get your undivided attention; I wasn’t sure of your response. I wanted to make you think.” She looked at Tuck and chuckled. “I do believe I’ve accomplished that with your husband, Tanda Havra.”

Tanda waved her forward. “Good evening, Chief. It was my understanding that we were done with this.”

“I know. However, these are times that try a police chief’s patience. Please, may I say a few words? If you’d hear me out, it will be most valuable.”

“Why aren’t you talking to Kalvan?”

“That’s part of the problem. You haven’t heard it yet, but three times in the last two days there have been attempts on his life. Twice they were clumsy, the other wasn’t, but trying to use a fireseed weapon against the High King in a crowd is a very dangerous thing. Once again his people have saved his life.”

“As he has saved theirs,” Tuck said evenly.

“Yes. Let’s just say his bedchambers aren’t as private as they once were. Yours still are. Even Freidal...” The police chief shook his head. “They tried for him a moon ago.”

“They tried for Elspeth,” Tuck corrected her.

“Yes, I suppose. I doubt if they’d have minded if the king had died, though. Still, this is important and there’s not a lot of time.

“Tanda Havra. When you returned to Outpost with Lieutenant Gamelin’s patrol, you heard a litany of failures concerning why you weren’t warned.”

Tanda sniffed. “I’m not from Home Time Line; I understood well enough.”

“No, you’re not, but you don’t understand as much as you think. I lost six Paracops, Tanda Havra, plus two of your university co-workers. We found that the man in Zarthan had been stealing money and faking his spy reports. The man in charge at Outpost had malfunctioning equipment he didn’t wish to report.

“At the time, in my arrogance, I was satisfied with that. It’s taken two years for me to realize, like Alros of Zarthan, I was too hasty in my judgments. Now, I’ve put two hundred of my finest detectives into Zarthan. I came back and led a dozen more here.

“The plots...” Tuck said, inhaling audibly.

“Yes. Your plots...our plots.” She turned to Tanda Havra. “Wizard Traders.”

Tanda blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, once upon a time you received a briefing, with key words and key events that would have triggered your recall of information about the Wizard Traders. I was a little curious why they weren’t triggered when you found out about Tuck and his people.

“Your conditioning is on file. It was tampered with. It’s not obvious, but a good scan of the data shows it. We are now in the process of checking every Paracop’s and field agent’s conditioning. Everyone in the psych department is currently under arrest, although nearly two dozen died within moments of being arrested. Does that sound familiar?”

“Of course,” Tuck said.

“When I went to find the scholar who had been here, I found he’d been ‘routinely’ transferred. The paperwork has been lost as to exactly where. We’re checking, but I suspect he’s long gone.”

“And the scholar in Zarthan?” Tuck asked.

“I was there, personally, do you understand? I’d lost a half dozen men and women. When I found out the basic facts on the ground, I accepted them, had the man frog-marched to the nearest wall and had him shot at once.”

She looked bleak. “That was one of the few times I’ve used the extra-judicial powers granted to me. And now, bitterly, I’ve learned my lesson. Never again. I suspect it would still have resulted in the man’s death or perhaps his escape, but I will never again fail to ask about everything in an interrogation.”

“Chief, why didn’t I get sick during the plague? Why didn’t my son?” Tanda asked.

Hadron Dalla looked her right in the eye. “It’s the policy of the Paracops to make sure that our people are vaccinated. You are still ours, and by extension, your son is ours. You weren’t told, but you were given the vaccine.”

It took Tuck’s full strength to keep a grip on Tanda as she tried to lunge at the woman from so very far away. Far, in every sense of the word.

“You could have saved our people? And you did nothing?” Tanda’s scream was primal anguish.

“I realize saying it’s against policy provides little comfort. For what it’s worth, there’s a movement afoot to introduce a proposal banning all travel to all inhabited time lines. I don’t think it’ll pass and I know it won’t work. But politicians...it’ll make them think well of themselves and the voters will applaud their proactive stance.

“But larger issues remain. I don’t know if they still call themselves the ‘Wizard Traders’ or not. I do know that a follow-on of that group is still active. They seem to intend, for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, to discredit and destabilize every ruler and kingdom on this timeline. They want to kill everyone, just about. The plague was just one weapon. There will be others.”

Tuck coughed, shaking Tanda gently, hoping to convince her to relax. He wasn’t having much luck.

“No offense, Chiefie,” Tuck said, “but we already knew all of that. Congratulations! After three years your over-hyped police skills have brought you to where I was, when I looked down at the tracks Mary Flowers and her daughter left, the night they were taken a second time. I’m not about to tell anyone your secret, but I am actively seeking out those who I think are involved, and when I find them, at a time of my choosing, they will all die.

“On my planet, before my time, there was a town called Deadwood, Colorado. One night the citizenry rose up against their corrupt lawmen, their corrupt courts and hung a whole lot of men. Later, they apologized for the two mistakes. You can be sure, ma’am, that if I kill some of your people by mistake, I will be only too happy to apologize as well.”

Tuck grinned sardonically. “Of course, I know you can kill us both where we sit, but that’s your choice. At a certain point, Chief Hadron, you either believe in things worth dying for or you don’t have much worth living for.”

Hadron Dalla held up her hands. “Please! I’m on your side. I promise, so long as you don’t go running around shouting our secret to the rooftops that I will cooperate with you. Perhaps not as detailed and complete a cooperation as you might like, but certainly better than you have now.”

“Some of your surveillance information would be a major assistance,” Tuck told her boldly.

“And why do you think I’m here? Why do you think a great many politicians are having bowel problems back home? Someone has been messing with the electronic surveillance, at least here, on the Kalvan Time Line. There is none of it we can trust. That’s going to change, and I’m going to assign quite a large number of Paracops here to do the work the old fashioned way.”

“Someone messed with your electronics?” Tuck asked.

“They completely spoofed them,” the chief admitted. “Except for the direct reports of agents on the ground, everything is suspect, and some of the direct reports were changed as well. This is the most massive security undertaking in my people’s history, Tuck. Someone has been playing us all for fools.”

“Why?” Tanda Havra finally got around to asking, having calmed down enough to not want to kill Hadron Dalla that particular instant.

“We have no idea. Sure, Calvin Morrison proves the ‘Great Man’ hypothesis, as do you and Tuck, but that’s of importance mostly to academics, and while it might prove it, the fact remains that the preponderance of evidence suggests that historical forces, at some point, produce the necessary individuals who change the course of history.

“It makes no sense to do this on a timeline with such a heavy Paracop and University presence. There are billions of timelines where it might take a hundred years to notice something was going on. Here...it took just a few years.”

“It took you just a few years,” Tuck contradicted her. “Those of us here were a little quicker on the uptake.”

“Yes. I’m not going to excuse our failures. We are working on them.

“I want you to send a cautionary message to Kalvan, saying that the possible rewards, at this point in time, do not justify the risks of him traveling here. Have him send Hestophes, who is already on this side of the plague boundary.”

“You could simply tell him to his face,” Tuck said reasonably.

“I could, but Kalvan is no fool. He knows who I am, at least in general. Like you, he doesn’t want us interfering...although he’d like a cure for the plague for the people of Hostigos and Zarthan.”

Tuck nodded. “I understand your dilemma. The problem I have is if I just got here, how come I can understand it and your people never could?”

“I’m not here to justify what happened. Look, you have to understand that desperate people do desperate things. Our civilization had outgrown the planet. Yours was about a hundred years from the same fate.

“Home Time Line is the one place–the one who found how to travel between the timelines. We call that the First Level. About eighty percent of the Second Level is radioactive wilderness where the cockroaches have a tough row to hoe. Another ten percent of the time, they keep the number of nuclear weapons used to survivable levels. Those societies are mostly agrarian and invariably Luddite. One timeline in ten got off planet and starting drawing on off-planet resources.”

Tuck ran his hand over his eyes. “I still don’t know why you’re telling us this.”

“We can’t help a lot, but we can help some. We won’t use technology to solve your problems, but we have a lot of very astute people coming who’ve been places where they’ve had to face just about every kind of nastiness you can imagine–other forms on a par with the Mexicotál God-Kings. I have to admit they are in a unique class that few societies have achieved in human experience.

“Trust me, Tuck. Trust me. If Kalvan tries to come west, he’ll be attacked and will be at great risk of being killed. If Freidal comes, it will be the same. Even Count Errock at Outpost isn’t likely to survive the trip.”

“They could bring stronger security forces,” Tanda offered.

“They could. And it wouldn’t matter. If your enemies, if our enemies, come for them, they will die. These people have no such compunctions about using advanced technology as we do. They want you dead, Kalvan dead–everyone. We still have no clue why.”

“Fine, wonderful,” Tuck told him. “Okay, we’ll tell Hestophes to be careful and for everyone else to stay put. Is there anything else? What about Kalvan? Are you going to tell him about this?”

“Tuck, I wish I could. Once, a decade ago, we sold the High King some cast bronze cannon. Do you know what he asked to my husband’s face?”

Tuck shook his head. “’Do they really cast such cannon as these in Grefftscharr?’ Verkan assured him they did, and it was true. Calvin Morrison looked him right in the eye and said that with one thing or another, he wanted to manage on his own merits.”

“So, why tell us?” Tuck asked him.

“Both of you know what can happen when a powerful ally tries to help someone much weaker. Yes, it can be dangerous, but good men can make it work. You might also want to talk to Tanda on the subject, as that was her particular area of study.”

Tuck looked at Tanda who shrugged. “Relative cultural anthropology hasn’t really seemed relevant lately.”

Hadron Dalla spoke up again. “One last thing. Please release Lady Inisa.”

Tuck laughed. “Why would I want to do that? She’s a confessed traitor.”

“She confessed because that’s what I asked her to do if she was apprehended. She was to make up a story like Lady Maya’s. Let her go, kick her out of the city and send her back to Zarthan.”

It was Tuck who first sucked wind.

“She’s one of yours.”

“She’s one of mine. The real Inisa died in a riding accident when she was fourteen. My husband inserted a deep cover agent in her place, because her family had important access to Styphon’s highest levels. She still has those contacts.”

“Even if we turn her loose?” Tanda asked.

“She is a favorite of one of their leaders in Zarthan. He will be glad to get her back. They will be a little suspicious, but not greatly so.”

“Theater,” Tuck said. “You need to learn to appreciate theater.”

Chief Hadron smiled. “We have quite different forms of entertainment.”

“No doubt. That’s probably why none of you can lie worth a damn. Do you realize I automatically mistrust anyone who can’t play poker worth a damn, either? Your people have no training in dissembling.”

The Chief of the Paratime Police saluted Tuck. “Well, evidently no effective training. Not so my husband. I’ll be in touch. Please, don’t forget about Inisa.”

Then she took a step backwards and was gone.

IV

When the steam puller slowed and stopped at what everyone was now calling Kingston, Noia looked out the window and shook her head. Less than two days from Xiphlon to Kingston, more than five hundred miles in a day and a half. And one of the puller crewmen had told her that when they hurried, they could do it in eighteen palm widths.

The Count of Kingston met her when she stepped down from the puller wagon. Count Heklestes clearly was trying to be like the High King in all ways possible. He was tall and blonde, and wore his beard like the High King and dressed like him.

“Countess Noia, my regards.”

She wondered if she should correct him, but wasn’t sure if that would be a good idea.

He smiled at her. “Now, if it was just a few of you like last time, I’d put you in a coach and you’d be on your way tomorrow with a small escort. The High King has said, though, you must be kept safe at all costs.

“Moreover, we are still making preparations for when the plague arrives.” He looked at her seriously. “So far it hasn’t reached the Big River, so we’re safe for a while longer, but all it will take is one fool or one desperate person and it can change overnight.”

“How does Duke Tuck fare?”

“Better than he’d hoped, but that isn’t to say that thousands of people haven’t died, particularly children younger than six summers. A good many of those die. We will...”

A pistol exploded a dozen feet away, and the count died instantly. Another shot and the only reason why Noia didn’t die was that Trilium had had time to jump between her and the man shooting and took the bullet himself.

From another angle she saw a man pulling a pistol from his cloak even as Tanda Sa killed the first man. The universe seemed to go into slow motion as the man’s pistol lifted free and moved to line up on her. Her reaction was instinctive, her hand dropping to the shotgun on her belt. She pushed the grip down, turned her body slightly, and fired from the hip.

Phelen had fired as well and the man never had a chance to level his pistol. He was flayed by a dozen shotgun pellets and died instantly. Half a dozen members of the crowd beyond him, though, went down.

Tanda Sa was screaming orders and the dockyard men were pressing close against her, their own shotguns at the ready. There were more commands as the commander of the count’s guards tried to marshal his men and bring order out of the sudden chaos that engulfed the steam puller station.

Rational thought returned as the sudden rush of adrenalin faded. Trilium! She pushed her way to his side. He lay still on the ground, looking up. After a heartbeat his eyes focused on her.

He grinned. “One of those clouds, Lady Noia, looks like a horse.”

“Rest, Trilium! The priests have been sent for, I heard the command!”

He laughed. “I’m not sure what happened, but it didn’t feel like a regular bullet. I’ve been shot a few times before and this wasn’t like that. But something hit me hard, low and on the right side.”

She looked more closely and shook her head. “Sorry, Trilium, I’m really sorry. The bullet hit your shotgun.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“One of the shells went off, your leg took some of the bullets, but I don’t think they were going very fast. But your hip bone is visible.”

He blinked and tried to sit up to look, but she put her hand on his chest and restrained him. “I think you should rest.”

Tanda Sa had crouched down on Trilium’s right side and had grabbed a piece of cloth and pressed it against the wound.

One of the count’s guards managed to fight his way through the press of Noia’s men and crouch beside her. “I have sent a message to Brigadier Declos, who is the military commander here. He should be here in a few finger widths. The count is dead.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Noia told him.

“Bastards! Dirty, stinking, lousy, back-shooting bastards! I only wish one of them had survived.”

“I doubt if their plan included the survival of those men, Captain. I have a wounded man here; I saw some of the crowd go down. We must see to them.”

“The healers are already working, Lady Noia. One will be here shortly.”

As he spoke a young priest wearing a wolf’s head cape pushed through and knelt down next to her wounded friend. He spoke rapidly, addressing Trilium who still seemed not only alert, but not in much pain. After a finger width of work the priest looked around and found some of the local soldiers. “I’ll need a stretcher and four bearers, a dozen men to escort the wounded man.”

The soldier saluted. “Yes, Cruxios!” He ran to obey the command. He’d hardly taken a step when there were a spattering of rifle shots towards the town. Then there was a solid slam of a volley. Very few rifles shots responded to that.

Noia looked into the distance, trying to understand what was going on. There was another rifle volley, sounding undiminished.

A runner came pelting up to the guard commander. “Brigadier Declos reports that Ruthani are storming the citadel! You are to gather such soldiers as are available and attempt to flank them!”

There was another of the feeble responses. Something about the way the shots were fired told Noia that the men shooting had suddenly become desperate. She reached out her hand and stayed the Hostigi captain. In the distance another rifle volley crashed out.

Then the afternoon was shattered by a crashing explosion, and a pillar of smoke went up from the citadel in the city.

“Captain!” Noia said, shaking him. “It’s a raid, do you understand?”

“Of course! I must go to the brigadier’s support. Please, Countess, your men...”

“If you go to his aid, you will be swallowed up.” Another rifle volley crackled, just like the others. “Captain, those men continue to fire at the walls of the citadel. They are not rushing inside. Their target is your fireseed store! Remember Lord Tuck’s raid on the Zarthani in the war!”

In the distance, at the time there should have been another volley, there was nothing. “Cover!” Noia called. “Everyone in the sound of my voice! Take cover!”

The captain hesitated, but already people were dropping to the ground. There was another rifle volley, only this time it was apparent that they were the targets. Noia followed her own advice, dropping to the ground.

The explosion was huge and fiery. There was a yellow center, followed instantly by a ball of black smoke that rose quickly into the air.

She could see chunks of rock coming up as well. She buried her face in the dirt, praying to the gods that had kept her safe so far.

Something large hit the steam puller. There was a loud metallic clank, like a badly broken bell, and then a CHUFF of sound, and a white cloud sprang from the steam puller. A dozen people were close enough to be scalded and all started screaming at once.

Noia took a breath, and then yelled at the top of her breath. “ _Three Hills_ men! Prepare to defend yourselves! They’ll be coming at us in a heartbeat!”

Sure enough, there was another rifle volley and a hundred men arose and charged towards them. The Hostigi captain tugged at her arm. “Countess!”

“Shut up, fool!” she barked. She could see the line of men charging them.

“Ready!” she called as loudly and clearly as she could. “Fire at will!” Two dozen shotguns went off in a ragged volley.

A third of the running men tumbled down. A heartbeat later, the independent fire started marking down individuals still upright. The attack staggered, stopped and the survivors milled around, looking for the riflemen who were murdering them in windrows. She remembered Captain Gryllos at the Wagon Box Fight. His men hadn’t paused; they hadn’t hesitated. 

“Pour it into them!” she called savagely, firing her own shotgun for the first time. One of the Ruthani screamed for the men to withdraw and she killed him next. She spilled empty shells out and hastily took two from her pocket. She hoped her men were better prepared than she was, because she had only four left!

There were more shots now, from the area around the steam puller, and from other parts of the town as well, as more men realized a raid was in progress, and started to engage the raiders as they sought to break free.

Phelen crawled over to Tanda Sa and said something to him. Tanda Sa glowered at the fat man, but called to a party of her men. “Six of you, make sure you have plenty of shells, take some from the others if you must. Go among the fallen and make sure they are dead. Don’t take any chances.”

Noia watched as a half dozen men stood up, a bit gingerly, then gather a few extra shells from the others. More of her men were digging in their gear and passing out boxes of shells to everyone.

Phelen crawled over to her. “Please stay down, Countess. This is no time to be foolish.”

“And what did you tell Tanda Sa?”

He laughed. “That this was no time for a Ruthani to stand up and start telling people what to do.”

“He’s a true man,” Noia said loyally, but at the same time she recognized that Phelen had the right of it.

The Hostigi captain stood up. Reluctantly, she stood as well. “Captain...”

He turned to her, his jaw slack in shock.

“Captain, was your brigadier in the citadel?”

The man looked at the towering plume of black smoke and dust, with flame tinging the bottom. “Yes, Countess.”

“Your count is dead, your brigadier is dead. Right now you need to prepare a hasty defense in case this was a probe. You need to succor the wounded; you need to send men to fight the fires. There are a great many things to do, Captain. I would, if you wish help, be of whatever assistance you require. So will my men.”

The captain looked from her, then to where her men were going through the heaps of dead Ruthani raiders. “You broke the attack. You and your men!” he breathed, suddenly realizing the truth of it.

“And you have a shotgun yourself, do you not?”

“It’s in my quarters...” He stopped and looked at the citadel and swallowed.

“My lady, what should I do?”

“Take stock as quickly as you can. There are quite a few townsmen about. Get some of them to help with the injured and wounded. Have them help with the fires. Gather what soldiers you can and have them dig fighting holes. Where, you’d know that better than I.”

He moved a few feet away and found a couple of sergeants and a corporal. Within moments they were going about restoring order, organizing work parties.

Finally the captain returned to Noia’s side. He saluted her formally. “Lady, I’m sorry I was so useless.”

“In my first battle I didn’t even fire my rifle or pistols,” she told him. “This time, I was one of the last of my people to fire. Our job, Captain, is to take charge. You’re doing fine.”

Late that night Noia was sitting at a fire, Trilium a few feet away, lying on a low cot, just high enough to be out of the dirt. He smiled at her. “So, I missed this battle, eh?”

“It wasn’t much of a battle. About like Gryllos fought at the Wagon Box Fight, that dawn. They came right into our guns, bunched up on top of that. Most of our men fired six shots. That’s more than eight hundred bullets against just a hundred Ruthani. In a battle like this...” she spread her hands, still astounded how suddenly the battle had turned. It had happened that way for Gryllos, too.

It was sobering to realize that until her men had fired the Ruthani had been confident and victorious. And that she and her people had changed that in a few heartbeats.

Phelen appeared out of the darkness and sat down next to her. He glanced around and spoke softly, even though Trilium was the only person close. “I talked to some of my friends, Countess. It isn’t good, not good at all.”

He waved where there was still smoke and flame coming from the citadel. “The captain is the senior line officer who survived uninjured. There’s a logistos major and an artillery colonel, both of whom seem deranged.”

“Deranged?”

Phelen shrugged. “The colonel was on the wall, trying to get a cannon loaded with grape to fire on the attackers. When the citadel exploded, he was the only man in two hundred yards on the wall to survive. He was crouched down, to pick up another load of grape. The cannon shielded him.”

“Will he recover?”

From Phelen’s expression it was clear he didn’t think so.

“And what do your friends tell you about other things?”

“The count had important news for you, Lady Noia. King Xyl is in Zacateca, his kingdom has been thrown down and destroyed.”

“Pardon?” Noia asked, startled.

“The plague, my lady. They didn’t know what to do. The advice of Duke Tuck and the High King came too late for many of them. Then the remnants of the old priesthood revolted, and then some of the nobles revolted. There were a couple of local revolts as well, evidently. King Xyl still has a million soldiers, but he’s not going to be able to keep them, because there are less than twenty million of his people alive, and they are disorganized, destitute and despairing.”

“That’s terrible!”

“One of my friends thinks that they will be smaller than Hostigos, this time next year. Lady Noia, a foreign king did this. He sent a plague carrier to Xyl.”

She blinked. “It was deliberate? Not an act of the gods?”

“Well, I won’t speak as to the will of the gods. But it was certainly a deliberate act of malice from a king on the other side of the Eastern Ocean. My lady, King Xyl, the High King and Duke Tuck have declared a cease fire for the next two years.”

“Two years? That’s insane! No one has a ceasefire that lasts two years.”

“True. Most likely there will be a meeting of the kings later this year, then there will be a peace. Hostigos will be able to ward off the worst of the blow, but still tens of thousands will die, many of them children. A very great many children died in Mexico.”

Noia sagged, stunned. It was too much! Just too much!

“Lady, I am just a man who whispers secrets in your ear,” Phelen told her. “But I’m not stupid and neither are you. Right now, right here, there is a vacuum of power here. The captain is probably fine in battle when someone commands him, but in this situation, he’s tentative and unsure. That’s risking things–things that include you and me.

“Lady Noia, message the High King. The talking wires have been fixed. Ask High King Kalvan to appoint you temporarily in command here.”

“Who is going to give command of a town in the middle of the continent to an eighteen-year-old sea officer?”

“Countess Noia will be in command.”

She looked at him, unsure what to make of his suggestion. “Lady Noia,” he said urgently, his voice low. “The war with Xyl is on hold. While you should return to Zarthan quickly, there will be someone senior here in a few days to take over. Do well here, Lady Noia, and your king will have to take notice. And if there is no war with Xyl on the horizon, well, there is no reason not to send an army to visit the wrath of King Freidal on Alcibydos this summer. With you at the head of the column, having done the High King an important service, showing everyone what sort of leader you are.”

“Lady Noia,” Trilium called from his cot. “I don’t like the man,” he waved at Phelen.

Phelen laughed. “I can live with the hate of a hundred men and the love of one woman. In fact, I can live with that hate just fine if only one woman in particular listens to my advice.”

He waved at Kingston. “Things still need to be done, Lady Noia. The captain, fine man that he is, doesn’t know what they are. He’s too busy to listen to his sergeants. The surviving officers...one of them could do better, but he’s just a lieutenant. No one listens to junior lieutenants.”

From the dark Tanda Sa, along with a half dozen of her men, appeared. “Countess, the captain wants you at the talking wire office, near the steam puller station. The High King himself is on the other end of the wire.”

Noia jumped up and even more of her men surrounded her, their shotguns pointing outwards. Soldiers saw them and called good-natured jests about protecting the treasures of the countess. She’d already had that explained to her. Her treasures were the shotguns, even though she had almost nothing to do with them.

She found the office and the captain. He was looking haggard and his hand shook. “Countess, the High King has sent you a message.”

He handed the paper to her and she read it. “Report situation as soon as possible.”

She turned to the captain. “Have you reported to the High King?”

He wrung his hands. “Yes, Countess.”

“I just wanted to be sure I didn’t duplicate any information,” she told him gently.

He nodded and then waved outside. “I will be at the remains of the main gate, Lady Noia. They used fireseed to burst it.”

She nodded, and then sat down next to the signal sergeant at the odd machine. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Send this.”

The sergeant nodded and started sending. Phelen leaned over his shoulder, ignoring the dirty look he got.

Phelen laughed after a few heartbeats, shook his head and stood back.

There was a finger width waiting for a response, when it came it came in two parts. The sergeant handed her the first part, without comment, then started working on the second part.

“The High King is sending Count Nicomoth, the engineer. He was in Hostigos, so it’s going to be most of a moon before he gets here. He’s to take command of Kingston.”

She looked around at her friends. “Until then, the High King is putting me in command.”

“A great opportunity, Lady Noia!” Phelen exclaimed, almost gleefully.

“A great risk. If the Ruthani return with a few thousand soldiers, we’ll lose the town and who knows what else. Oh, we’ll be dead, so it might not matter as much to us.”

As soon as the signal sergeant starting working on the second part, he waved at one of his privates. “Run and find out why Signal Lieutenant Stamos isn’t here yet. Get him here.”

The man left at a run. The signal sergeant grinned at Noia, even as he listened and wrote at the same time. “My lieutenant lost his wife and son this afternoon. I’m sorry, my lady, but earlier he was deep in his cups. But he has to be here for this. He’s supposed to sign off on the message. An officer has to, not me.”

“What’s your name, sergeant?”

“Aharic, Countess.”

“Your lieutenant is placed on ten days leave, as is customary, I believe, when a family dies like his. Prepare the order. Date it at sundown. Lieutenant Aharic, do your duty well.”

He sat up straight. “Yes, Countess!”

It was a long and smoky night. The fires stubbornly resisted the hundreds of buckets of water poured on them. It wasn’t until dawn that the worst of them were doused, but even so, the fire crews had to be continually on their guard.

Noia asked Phelen to find Tanda Sa, but it was like he heard her. “Lady Noia?”

“I know this isn’t a safe thing to order a man to do, but could you scout around the town? See if you can find out what, if anything, we’re facing? Be careful!”

He chuckled. “And you thought I spent the night sleeping? There were about a hundred and twenty of them; I doubt if a dozen survived. They left a wounded man behind. He thought I was someone coming back with help for him. He wouldn’t say very much, though.”

“Anything else?”

“I searched west, northwest, north and northeast, Countess. There aren’t any Ruthani within a palm width of the town.”

“A raid, then?”

“Yes, Lady Noia. They had special weapons just for this, he did tell me that. A bomb for the gates, another for the fireseed store.” He waved at the citadel. “This citadel was a poor design, Countess. The fireseed store was just a hundred steps from the main gate, with the main portal for the fireseed facing the gate. They blew up the gate, twenty men raced inside and a dozen of them managed to get back outside before the second bomb went off.”

One of the signal sergeants appeared and saluted. He handed Noia a message and she read it. “Tell them, accepted and understood,” she told the man, who saluted and left at a trot.

“I have a captain who’s not happy about being superseded, but glad at the same time. There is a nice artillery colonel who deserves a lot better than what he has got. The priests have him sleeping in the field hospital. A logistos major who stands looking at the citadel wringing his hands, trying to tally up what has been destroyed. I suggested he’d be better employed finding out what’s left, but he was concerned about his ‘final report’ to the High King. He’s sleeping at the field hospital as well, now.”

She waved the message. “A brigadier and ten thousand infantry are en route from Xiphlon. They’ll be here sometime late tomorrow.”

“Even a few days in command, Countess,” Phelen started to say, but she waved him off.

“No, that’s the really odd thing. The orders are clear. He is to report to Countess Noia of North Port for his orders. I command him, until Count Nicomoth arrives.”

“You know what I think?” Tanda Sa told her.

“What?”

“Now would be a good time to get some sleep. For all of us to get some sleep.”

Noia hadn’t really felt tired until he said that; then it seemed as if he was a sorcerer who’d turned her limbs to lead. She was led to a tent in a forest of similar tents. She put her head down on someone else’s pack and slept.

V

Puma stretched. It was good to be able to do the things she’d always been able to do, without feeling so tired that a nap would be better.

Texiera, her second in command, appeared. “Lady Puma, they released Sexia from the field hospital a short while ago. We all live!”

It had been a struggle; it had been more than a struggle. She envied Tanda Havra and Duke Tuck, who hadn’t gotten sick. Even so, both had taken their turns in the hospitals, tending the sick. All knew that one person in ten didn’t get sick. And, while Tanda Havra wasn’t Puma’s favorite person in the world, Puma was pleased her son had survived. A third of those less than six years old hadn’t. The people were very upset.

Shuria appeared in the door. “Lady Puma!”

“Lord Shuria!”

He laughed. “I am true Ruthani, Lady Puma! I don’t wish to become a lord!”

“And you’re here with orders, right? You intend to tell me what to do?”

“I’m a messenger. Tanda Havra wishes to talk to you in the palace.”

“I’m being stupid, right?” Puma asked.

“Of course. I’m smart. That said, I have a feeling that lords and ladies will do better in the future than true Ruthani. So maybe I’m not all that smart.”

“And what does Tanda Havra, my no-blood sister, want from me?”

Shuria laughed. “Cousin, I am of the Northern Ruthani. I work for Manistewa when there’s not a war in progress. Tanda Havra hates him, and trusts her uncle not at all–she extends those feelings to all that work for him. So she has not informed me of why she wants to see you. However, in fairness, I did bring a message with a long history to her yesterday. It is from a Zarthani noble, via the Northern Ruthani, via Manistewa and finally me. Please, Lady Puma, attend Tanda Havra.”

She nodded, explained her absence to Texiera and trotted at Shuria’s side to the palace.

At the entrance, he stopped and touched her arm with his hand. “One last thing, Lady Puma. Are you a true Ruthani?”

“Of course. Nothing will ever change that!”

“One day this war will be over. I would be very, very proud if, on that day, you would walk with me, beyond the firelight.”

Puma turned to him. “In the lands of the duke? We’d melt anywhere near a fire! I’d be in a hurry to get away from it!”

She hurried in, holding her sides, trying not to split them, she was laughing so hard.

Tanda Havra fixed that, quickly enough.

“I have a task for you, sister,” the older woman told Puma.

“As you command, so shall it be!”

“Save it, Lady Puma, for the next time you appear at court.”

“Yes, Tanda Havra. What would you have me do?”

“Something difficult, something dangerous. Do you understand about plots and plotters better now?”

“Yes, Tanda! Lady Inisa was an education! There are people I don’t like, people I might want to punch in the nose. But I would never plot to kill their infant, lying in wait for the proper time.”

“Ah! Lady Inisa. It is good that you bring her up. Plots and plotters, Puma. Manistewa has messaged that Lady Inisa is one of his agents, that she was well-placed to learn more about the plotters than anyone else.”

Puma stared at Tanda Havra, her mouth open in shock. “You hate your uncle and told him to go drown himself in Outpost’s lake, yes?”

“No. I have agreed to let her go. The duke concurs.”

Puma tried to think. If someone had plotted to kill a child of her womb–she’d have long since sent Lady Inisa to discuss treachery with the gods.

“You want me to let her loose?” Puma asked, still stunned.

“No. Well, yes, but more than merely kicking her out of the palace. I want you to escort her to meet with the plotters. Manistewa has struck a bargain with them.” She hawked and spat on the floor. “I swear, one day I’ll kill the man!”

She was clearly angry, which surprised Puma. Although just then, she wasn’t sure what was most surprising. “Manistewa learned that Inisa is a favorite of one of their leaders. If she is returned alive and relatively unharmed, they swear they will stop trying to assassinate Tuck, myself and John.”

Puma was tempted to stand up, turn and walk out the door and return to her village. Some things cost too much!

Tanda Havra waved her hand. “I swear to you, sister, that I was no part of the bargain, would never have been part of such a bargain and my husband has sworn blood vengeance on Manistewa.”

Puma gulped.

“Still, Manistewa is right, at least so far as having a spy with the plotters. The only way they will believe we’re letting her go is with the personal component. It’s how such people think, do you understand?”

Puma found that tears were trickling down her cheeks. “Sister, I have wronged you so many times! I could never do what you do! I am unworthy!”

“Don’t be silly! You are perfectly worthy! You do what you are asked and you do it well. This is a bitter cup for all of us. You, in particular, if you agree.”

“Me, sister?”

“Yes. Ideally we’d let Inisa escape and she could then return on her own to her confederates. Except we’re here, in the middle of the desert, very far from Zarthan. No one would believe our scouts couldn’t catch a woman of the Zarthani court the same day she escaped. It will take more than half a moon to reach where she has to go. No, we need someone to escort her.

“The problem is, of course, that we expect that their promises will end the instant Inisa is in their hands. Which means those who bring her to them will be killed, and we’ll have to redouble our security for ourselves.”

Puma laughed. “In the desert? I would be in danger, but no more so than any other time I was in the desert.”

“Shuria will go with you.”

“He was asking me to walk with him a little while ago. I don’t think he will mind a little run.”

“Walk with him or don’t walk with him, that’s your choice, sister. Always. Tazi made her choice and so did Hestius. I never faulted her for that, and I doubt if it contributed in the least to either of their deaths. At least, so I tell myself every day.”

“So, you want us to take Inisa to this place, keep her alive and return, yes?”

“Yes. My husband would be upset, Manistewa would be very upset, but if she were to die and you and Shuria were to live, I’d count it a victory.”

Tanda Havra reached out and gripped Puma’s hand. “And if you could see the face of even one of the plotters–and live–you would have my thanks, my husband’s thanks and that of the High King and the King of Zarthan. When it comes to having people thanking you, we’re a powerful group to have on your side. Assuming you stay alive.”

Puma nodded. Then her mind betrayed her. What had Tanda Havra told her? Inisa was a servant of Manistewa?

“Lady Tanda...I have failed you already. When we questioned Inisa, we did not learn all we could.”

“I know,” Tanda replied calmly.

“You know?”

“Of course. You are young, Puma, and so are the others. You see the world clearly, when in fact, there is fog rising everywhere. Tell me, Lady Puma: who does Inisa get her orders from?”

She looked at Tanda Havra and in that instant, understood. Inisa had told them enough to satisfy their interest, but no more.

Tanda nodded. “Inisa rarely leaves the palace, and usually for a specific errand I would send her on. You and yours followed her on several such occasions and saw nothing. That’s because the person giving her orders is in the palace.”

Puma’s body felt cold and leaden. If she had faced the great cats as stupidly as she’d faced these plotters, she’d be cat plop in the mountains now.

She looked at Tanda Havra who was sitting calmly, watching her. Puma’s mind raced. She was missing something! Ah! If she spent a few moments asking questions of Inisa before they left, she’d hear things that would promptly be erased as soon as Inisa was safe with her friends, because she would surely tell them and they would kill Inisa and Puma.

“I will tell my people that Shuria and I will be moving Lady Inisa to Outpost, because we think she is in danger here.”

“Zimapan, Lady Puma. Zimapan.”

“And my people are supposed to be so stupid that they don’t know which way we’re headed?”

“We wouldn’t want word to get back to Inisa’s friends that she might be going the wrong direction.”

Puma nodded. She would need to spend some time thinking about this, but from this day forward, she was going to be spending a lot of time thinking.

“Shuria said he didn’t know what you want of him.”

“He doesn’t, at least not completely. He brought the message, but Inisa’s name was left out. You will tell him who the two of you will escort and he will know to where to take her.”

Puma looked Tanda Havra in the eye, understanding with bitter heart, Tanda’s final message.


	18. Nine of Ten

I

The King of Zarthan looked up as his brother-in-law sat down in front of him.

“You wanted me, sire?” Denethon asked.

Freidal nodded. “You’ve heard about the catastrophe that occurred to King Xyl and his people?”

“Yes, sire.”

“The news came to us very fast, much faster than one would expect.”

Denethon grinned. “The High King understands how important it is for his words to be heard as quickly as possible as far away as he can reach.”

“Exactly. You hold one of the baronies, previously free and now arrogated to Alcibydos, the pretender of North Port.”

“Yes, sire. You asked me not to go north and disabuse Count Alcibydos of his mistake until the right time.”

“Go north. I had wished that Countess Noia could ride at your side, but that’s not going to happen soon. Denethon, the Ruthani raided Kingston when she was there.”

Denethon looked at him, suddenly concerned.

“Exactly. Even the High King isn’t sure who the raid was against. Him or Noia. It was bad, Denethon. Very bad.”

“Lady Noia?”

Freidal laughed. “You should know my lady wife and her friends better! Lady Noia rallied the shattered defense and destroyed the raiding party. Not before Count Kingston was killed, not before the brigadier commanding the garrison was killed, and not before more than five hundred others died.

“The High King has asked Countess Noia to remain in Kingston in command for the better part of a moon until the new count arrives.

“Or, to put it plainly: Lady Noia won’t be here until this fall. Once she is here, I have things that urgently need her attention. Things that will take a moon, if she rushes, two or three if she devotes the time she should.”

“You want me to go north by myself?”

“Well, no, not that. Take an army with you. You have fifty men who rode with you with the God-King’s column advancing on Xiphlon. They are the nucleus of your division. Take the entire division.”

“Yes, sire!”

“Tell your men that they are headed to South Port. If any man leaves the formation, kill him.”

“Indeed so, sire! This won’t take long!”

“Yes, it will. Once you’ve settled with Alcibydos, do an about march and head east. Burn every Ruthani village and town you come to, until you meet Captain-General Count Phrames, coming west from Princeton.”

For the first time Denethon demurred. “And Alros, sire? What about my wife?”

“If you feel it appropriate, she may accompany you in the field. Understand that certain parties will find her a particularly attractive target. Count Echanistra has said he would look after her, if things got bad.”

Denethon bowed. “I’m uncomfortable leaving you and the queen behind.”

“I know. On the other hand, I still have Xitki Quillan! So far they’ve only tried to kill him once!”

“That will change, Freidal.”

Freidal sighed. “I imagine so. Elspeth is getting close to term. I wish there was a way to change it, to put her someplace where she could safely wait until our child was six. The plague...”

“The plague. The plotters did that! We will take the battle back to their pawns! Such men will learn to fear our wrath!”

“Kill the men, burn the towns. Try to avoid killing the women and children,” Freidal warned. “The plague will kill enough of them as it is.”

“It seems to have slowed.”

“The season is turning cold early. The High King and Duke Tuck both warn that in the spring it will come back with a vengeance.”

“Do I have leave to kill Alcibydos?”

“Yes, if it happens in battle. If he surrenders, you will put him in chains and bring him to me.”

“He is one of the plotters. He will die as soon as he is in my power.”

“You can’t be the one to kill him, unless he is in armed revolt against the crown. The other counts will understand that is their fate if they take up arms against me. But you won’t kill him if he surrenders.”

“And who will take my word that he killed himself?”

“I will. Alros and Elspeth will. Xitki Quillan will. The High King and Duke Tuck. Lord Denethon, you have quite a few people who believe in your honor.”

King Freidal grinned at Denethon. “I have some instructions for you to read later, at your leisure, should Alcibydos come into your hands and should he stay alive. He is one of those my dear wife would very much like to talk to.”

Denethon bobbed his head. “I will do as you wish, of course. You understand that if things weren’t the way they are, if it was just Alcibydos and myself, he’d die, one way or the other, on the end of my sword?”

“Brother, please, I value you! If you must, shoot the bastard. Don’t get too close to him.”

II

Puma strode into the cell and Inisa looked up. The prisoner’s eyes went immediately back down to the ground. “Up!” Puma commanded.

Inisa stood, her head still bowed.

“Your lucky day, woman! It seems Manistewa is your friend! He’s not my friend; he’s not my no-blood sister’s friend. He is sort of the friend of Duke Tuck, Count Errock and the High King. I wouldn’t try to trade very much on that, if I were you.”

“What is it you want?”

“Manistewa has arranged for your ransom. Shuria and I will take you to the place and there give you to your friends. It would please me, Inisa, if at some point you were to violate the parole you will have to give us, so we can kill you. Do I have your parole until you are turned over to your friends?”

“And why should I believe you?”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“I’m still alive.”

“Oh, that was just fond wishes and hopes. You will find that true men and women don’t plot to kill babes-in-arms and don’t hold those who do with any regard.”

“I will pledge my parole to Lord Tuck or Lady Tanda.”

“If that’s your wish. If I were you, though, I’d pledge it to me. If you pledge yourself to the duke or his lady, and I were to hear you were going behind one bush to relieve yourself, and if I were to find you behind another, I’ll kill you for the oath breaker you are. Pledge to me and I’ll hear your petition about the hairy spider in the first bush.”

“Duke Tuck or Lady Tanda,” Inisa replied firmly.

Tanda Havra came in. “Pledge your parole!”

Inisa said the traditional words and Tanda Havra nodded. “Then, so be it. If I ever see you again, particularly if my son is at all close, I’ll kill you the next instant.”

“The sooner I am far, far from this hot, dry, dusty furnace, the better. I have no intention, ever, of returning.”

After the first word Tanda Havra had spun on her heel, and the last sentence was half shouted at her vanishing back.

Puma undid the shackles and chains that held Inisa in the room and motioned for her to go first. They went through empty corridors until they were outside. There was a carriage and Puma waved her inside. The curtains were drawn, and Shuria put the team in motion.

“Beside you,” Puma told the former prisoner, “is a small bag. It contains some of your possessions from your room. Clothes, mostly. There is also a water jack and some field rations. Please, take a drink from the water jack.”

“Why?”

“So you can tell me now if it’s poisoned or otherwise not to your liking.”

Inisa reached down, took the leather skin and took a drink. “That’s vile!” she told Puma.

Puma laughed, and tossed Inisa her own water. “You can trade for mine, if you like.”

Inisa looked at her hands in disgust. “This is greasy!”

“Bear fat. Don’t worry, I’ve never known bear fat to go bad. Rancid, yes, but not bad.”

Inisa looked around the coach. “How long will the journey take?”

“Half a moon. Two palm widths in this fine carriage, and then you can learn more about how the Ruthani run.”

“I am not Ruthani.”

“I never suggested you were. Instead, you’ll learn how we run. It will be quite educational!”

“Half a moon?” Inisa said with her eyes closed.

“Assuming you don’t slow us too much.” Puma laughed. “We are taking a short-cut, across the desert. Otherwise it would take a moon.”

“And you’re not going to kill me?”

“We won’t, no–not so long as you behave. However, we will have to be careful to avoid Ruthani, Zarthani and Hostigi patrols, because they will kill us all. We are from south of the plague line, Inisa. If we can convince them we’re wandering around lost in the desert, we might live, but we would be sent back. If we can’t do that, if they think we’re deliberately spreading the plague–why, they’ll hang us from the nearest tree or heavy bush.”

Inisa turned pale. She averted her head, staring at the leather of the curtains, not wanting to say anything else.

III

Noia glanced next to her as Count Nicomoth stood, silently staring at the ruin of the citadel of Kingston. Finally he sighed heavily and turned to her. “Countess, would we have met again under better circumstances! 

“I swear to you, had I or any of our regular engineers seen the plans for this position, the work would have stopped instantly and things would have changed.”

“It was certainly convenient for our enemies.”

“Proper military fortifications aren’t necessarily convenient. The idea is to be secure, first. I will arrange for a discussion between one of the High King’s intelligencers and the man who designed this. If I wanted to sabotage a fortification’s design, I’d have done it exactly like this.”

He waved then, behind them.

“That, Countess, that is what truly concerns me.”

That was the bustling town of Kingston that had pretty much put the raid behind them. They’d buried their dead, they’d mourned them, and then went about their work. With exception of the citadel, all of the damage had been repaired.

“I’ve been learning a lot about construction,” she replied with a smile.

“I can see that! You have done very well, Countess! Very well indeed! I will fill the High King’s ears with your praises.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Oh, more good than bad. Now, however, it is time for you to continue on west. It’s a sad thing, our duty, Countess. We have to do things quickly that we really wish we could have drawn out.” He waved at the town. “You have an eye for layout and design. I’m impressed. It bespeaks of more than casual interest.”

“They’d been hurt, and hurt badly,” Noia explained. “It didn’t seem proper not to do my best.”

“Well, you’ve done quite well. That just means, though, that in the end, it’s harder to leave.”

Noia grimaced. She’d already learned that. The people here were capable, willing, loyal, and hard working–dozens of endearing, enduring traits that anyone would cherish. To be placed over them, even for such a short time, had been a heady thing.

He faced her. “I’m truly sorry it took us so long to reach here, Countess.”

“The plague came to Xiphlon, I understand,” Noia told him.

“Yes. We were stopped well short of the city, and then we rode north, then west again. Horses, instead of the steam puller. My lady, the High King commands that I hurry you west, before the plague gets here.

“Brigadier Teucritas has organized a party of nearly a thousand men. They will see you safely to Outpost.”

“That seems...excessive.”

“More so than you imagine. Even as we stand here, a force of about ten thousand of the High King’s finest heavy cavalry departed from north of here, heading west, under Captain-General Phrames. As late in the season as it is, the Northern Ruthani will come to realize the error of their ways. Count Phrames will be burning all of their villages and towns he comes across.”

“In the face of the coming winter?”

“Exactly. Many towns and villages will be destroyed, but not many people. The soldiers will be intent on destruction of buildings and crops, not the people. Quite a lot of refugees will go west, filled with wailing and lamentations about the terrible Hostigi behind them. A great many of the Northern Ruthani will go hungry this winter, but I don’t think many will starve.”

“I prefer a sea battle,” Noia told him.

He laughed. “And you’ve been in how many?”

She sighed. “None.”

“Well, you have fought in two of my sort of battles. Twice we have dealt them stinging defeats, even though the cost to us was high as well. Everyone says that your natural element is the sea. Countess! Like many, I’m looking forward to tales of your victories on the water!”

Noia blushed. “At the Wagon Box Fight, Gryllos saw their mistakes and used them against the God-King’s soldiers. Here, I only saw them coming at me and reacted. One day, Count, I too will make a mistake.”

He laughed. “Countess! At Three Hills I was charged with building artillery emplacements for Brigadier Markos. A third of those positions, Countess, a full third, never fired a shot! They were in the wrong places! It was as if I’d blown up a third of our artillery and artillerymen on that hill.”

“But your army won the battle, yes?”

“Yes. Afterwards, Count Alkildes, the man who commanded our artillery, heard one of the infantry officers complain about the placement of those guns. The count looked the officer in the eye and asked, ‘What if they’d tried to flank you on your left? Without guns in position, the day could have been lost. It was insurance.’”

He sniffed. “Countess, those guns weren’t insurance. I was told to dig artillery emplacements to defend the tip of a long thin hill that ran north and south. The standard plan in that case was a third to the left, a third in the center and third on the right. Simple. Except there were thickets on the left, impenetrable brambles. There was no chance they’d have come from that direction. It was a mistake on my part that turned out not to matter.”

Again he waved to where, a moon ago, so many Ruthani raiders had died. “They made a mistake that mattered and you did something right that mattered. That is the way of battle. You learn, each and every time you can from what happens.”

“I will remember that,” she told him.

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll be remembering something you didn’t already know. A lot of my fellow officers are unhappy that so many younger officers are doing well. I’m not unhappy and I’m certain the High King isn’t either. We have many enemies, and the only way we can beat them is to take the battle to them vigorously. We haven’t done enough of that, but that’s slowly changing. And it’s not the older officers doing the changing; it’s you young squirts. Good for you!”

“So, tomorrow at first light, we move out?” Noia asked.

“No. That’s a self-serving lie. The full moon will rise nearly a palm width after the sun goes down. We’ll call you as soon as the sun has gone, you’ll be on your way a palm width later.”

“I wish you the very best,” Noia told him.

“And I, you. Death to our enemies! Victory to our arms! Honor to the Gods!”

“Hear! Hear!” Noia said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Why wasn’t the prospect of returning home more palatable?

The signal lieutenant appeared and walked towards them. Noia braced herself. The expression on the man’s face was grim. He handed Noia a message form, and one just like it to Count Nicomoth.

Noia read the words. Long before she finished her tears were staining the page as they flowed in uninterrupted rivers down her cheeks.

IV

Denethon wiped tears from his eyes; the smoke wasn’t getting any better. “You are sure they got the message? Oath to Galzar and all of that?”

Captain Vicik nodded. “They got it. They told us to go do something rude.”

“They have no walls, they have maybe two or three guns. I have a hundred. I have ten thousand men and he has barely two hundred left to him; the rest have run.”

“Alcibydos says you will destroy North Port, not him.”

Denethon turned to his aide. “The artillery is in position?”

“Yes, sir. Major Philitas commands on the southern spit, his lieutenant on the northern. Twenty guns each. There are just two sea-going ships in the harbor. They cannot possibly survive the artillery to escape seaward.”

“And I assume Alcibydos can see those guns?”

“Yes, General!”

“Then why doesn’t the man surrender?”

There was a sudden sound from the town a few hundred yards ahead of them. Then a burst of rifle fire, very short-lived. Finally, silence once again.

“There’s more smoke, sir,” his aide whispered.

“I can see that. I can’t take the army into a burning city! That would be crazy! He can’t stay in a burning city, that would be crazy! Tell everyone to prepare for them to make a sortie! Try to take a few prisoners.”

There was a ground-rattling boom and everyone looked up. A huge ball of flame, smoke and dust rose over the city. A heartbeat later another and another, then more still, six in all.

Denethon stared in shock at the ruin that had once been North Port, a fair holding for any count. Then came another explosion, larger than any of the others, followed by three more, one after another. Those were much further away. It was impossible to see exactly what had exploded, but the last four explosions had been quite far off–about the distance to the spits of sand he’d sent his artillery to.

“Captain Vicik, pass the word. Nine of ten men in the army are to down their weapons and take up fire fighting equipment. They are to advance under the cover of the other tenth to see if they can rescue anyone from that pit of Styphon’s Hell!”

It took four days to put the fires out and even then, smoke still rose from places where the flames continued to smolder. Perhaps ten thousand had lived in North Port when the old count had died, another fifteen thousand in the surround. Now, the shattered remnants were only a few hundred.

And Count Alcibydos and the two ships that had been in the harbor had vanished into the smoke. It was a comforting thought to believe that he died in the explosions and fire, but Denethon doubted it.

Alros had been a pillar of strength, striding through the ruins of the town, seeing to the few survivors, doing what she could to succor them. It was, Denethon thought, a terrible thing to see–the gratitude on the survivors’ faces for the simplest acts of kindness.

There was no way to have heliographic communication to Baytown, so he’d sent a half dozen gallopers, plus a stronger party north, to Echanistra.

On the fourth day after the destruction, Count Echanistra joined him, walking through the destruction with the same look of horror that all of them had.

“Why, Denethon? Why? He destroyed the heart of his county! What kind of insane man would do that?”

“It was a county he was about to lose, and he had to know it would be his younger sister who would replace him. This is just a very, very expensive form of poisoning the well.”

“Usually a displaced count will visit some of his peers, looking for support. Not even the most demented would join him after this!”

“Count, I have to think that this was more than foolish pique, that the man had a plan. I can’t imagine what that is, but is it a coincidence that North Port now closely resembles the heartlands of King Xyl?”

Count Echanistra started to speak and then stopped. He looked at Denethon, then back at the ruins of the town. “They want this for all of us?”

“If we don’t submit, yes.”

“Never! I will never submit! I will fight with the last breath in my body!”

“The question, Count, is how many of us will do that, and how many will look at this and see the death and destruction of all that they and theirs have built over centuries? They aren’t going to wish this on their people. Some will, in fact, go to any length to avoid it–including treason.”

“And they would be fools! Any count who held his county in such little regard as Alcibydos did...how is he going to treat those of allies, if he feels the county needs to be destroyed? It won’t matter in the least to him.”

“It is something we need to communicate to all men,” Denethon told him.

“And Noia?”

Denethon paled. “I would not want to be the one to tell her what has happened. That will be the High King, I imagine. She was last in Kingston, doing brave deeds. Soon, I expect, soon she will ride out of one of the fogs here and see this.”

He looked at the much older count. “You understand, sire, my orders were to march east as soon as Alcibydos was thrown down. I have exceeded my orders.”

Count Echanistra waved his hand, as if it was the merest detail–as in truth it was. Freidal, had he been here, would have ordered the same things that Denethon had ordered.

“I cannot have my soldiers occupy North Port,” the old count told Denethon. “So, I’ll give three thousand of them to you. You leave three thousand of yours here. March east and burn the Ruthani out. Every last one of them. Leave not the sorriest mud and wattle lean-to.”

V

Thus it was that most of a moon later Denethon stood on a small hill, looking east at the first Ruthani village they’d come to. There was a cluster of about twenty homes, built along Zarthani lines, not Ruthani.

“The men are in position, General,” Captain Vicik said.

“Wait,” Denethon replied, while continuing to study the village.

“It will be full light soon. The men will be going out to the fields. Many of them might escape.”

“Wait!” Denethon said impatiently.

What had they talked about? That the plotters wanted a war between Hostigos and Zarthan...that if the two kings were killed in ambush, the war would happen, and it would be left until later to sort out what really happened.

Ruthani were viciously raiding the small towns and villages along the coast. Mostly, these days, they raided empty buildings, because the inhabitants had fled to the towns for protection.

And yet, here was a village less than a moon from the coast and it looked like a picture of bucolic innocence.

“Vicik, would you ask Lady Alros to join me?”

The man bobbed his head and ran back to the tent Denethon and Alros shared. He was pretty sure he’d hear about risks when he got back to Baytown, but Alros had insisted and he’d agreed.

She joined him in a moment. “I am, my dearest love, going to do something very stupid,” he told her.

She looked at the village, and then at Denethon. “It’s too peaceful, yes?”

“Yes.”

“A trick?”

“I told you what I was going to do was stupid. Yet, our scouts have watched for a full day. The men go to the fields; the women stay in the village, doing the hard work. It’s possible more soldiers lie in wait, but our scouts have found no signs of them.

“So yes, I’m going to walk down there.”

“Do be careful, Denethon.”

He grinned. “Always. Ever since you said you would marry me, I have been careful.”

She laughed at that, and waved him on.

Denethon stripped out of his armor, deciding to carry only a shotgun. He walked down the hill, just as the men were coming out of the village.

Two of them stepped in front of him. “I thought you Zarthani weren’t going to trade with us any more?” the lead man said brusquely.

“Do I look like a trader?” Denethon said reasonably.

“Do we look like folk with anything to trade?” one of the two men asked. “Why are you here?”

“I’m curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“What do you hear of our goings on, of late?”

The man shrugged. “You had your war against the southern folk who might once have been Ruthani. You got your asses kicked. You’re too busy to trade with us, and we don’t have much you want anyway.”

Denethon sighed, long and hard.

“And if I told you that this war was even shorter than the one before, what would you say?”

“That you make an easy brag.”

“If we were at war with the Mexicotál, the king could never have been able to spare thousands of soldiers to march against the Ruthani raiding our cities and towns in the north.”

“We don’t raid,” the man said, spitting on the ground. “We’re farmers! We take care of our fields; we hunt and fish. We spend a lot of time trying to make our wives pregnant, particularly when the winter snows come.”

Denethon lifted his hand, and ten thousand men moved to the brow of the hills surrounding the village.

The man turned pale, but his companion, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Someone,” the second man said, “is lying.”

“Someone is indeed,” Denethon told him. “Except they are more than one and it’s not just us they are lying to, but you as well.”

“How many,” the second Ruthani asked, waving around the hills.

“Ten thousand. I’m a little short of artillery, but Count Echanistra has loaned me some mortars.”

“Ah, mortars!” the man exclaimed. “I remember those!”

“And why would you remember those?”

“I am Tendai and this is my brother Tubai. We scouted for Lord Gamelin on his first patrol from Outpost, the one where we found the Sorcerer Tuck and his demon women.”

“I’ve met Gamelin, Tuck, Judy and Elspeth,” Denethon told him. “Tuck is no sorcerer and there were no demon women. One of them, Elspeth, is now my sister-in-law.”

In the distance a shot banged and Denethon made a motion. Instead of a crashing volley in reply, the soldiers on the hilltops vanished.

“Perhaps an accident,” Denethon said confidently. “Perhaps someone trying to foment a fight.”

Tendai bowed to Denethon. “A subtle argument, Zarthani!”

“More so when we both know that shot came from the village. Tell me, Tendai of the Ruthani, what rational woman of your village would open fire on ten thousand Zarthani infantry, ringing her village?”

“A gesture of despair, perhaps.”

“But if we’re supposed to be too busy with our war, and you are at peace, why despair?”

Tubai laughed. “You are Denethon!”

Denethon nodded.

“Sorry, General! It took me a heartbeat to remember who Lady Elspeth married, then who the sister of that man would be and who she married.”

A boy came running up and went at once to Tendai. There was a brief moment of whispered conversation, and then Tendai turned back to Denethon.

“I think I am going to travel to Hostigos to see the High King. I want to look the man in the eye and know once and for all if he’s a demon. I was with Gamelin when we met Lord Tuck. Please, don’t tell Lord Tuck is not a sorcerer! I saw his wagon, made of glass and metal. I saw it move across the desert faster than any horse could draw it...but he had no horses. I saw his weapons.

“And yet, Lord Gamelin did as you did just now. He walked out alone to meet Lord Tuck. And Lord Tuck walked out alone and they met. And they talked.”

There were tears in his eyes. “All men know when you meet an unknown, one who could be an enemy, you attack and destroy him in the off-chance he might be an enemy. Before the High King arrived, that is.”

He drew himself up. “Elk Woman lifted a rifle to fire at your men. Pale Moon, one of the grandmothers, saw her and knocked the rifle up so it could do no harm.”

One of the men behind Tendai screamed, “My woman would do no such thing!”

Tendai turned to him and said softly, “Elk Man, you have no woman. She took three steps and dove headfirst into one of the cooking fires. She died before the others could get her out. Pale Moon says Elk Woman took several deep breaths in the fire.”

The man screamed in agony, turned and ran for the village.

“In our lands, when we catch one of those who plot against us,” Denethon told Tendai, “they either die when they are captured, or the first time you ask them a question, no matter how gentle you ask the question.

“They have fomented war, tried to foment war, they have poisoned and in other ways murdered. My king died because of this. If you haven’t been hearing news, then you don’t know what happened in the Heartlands of the Mexicotál.”

“What happened in the Heartlands?” Tubai asked.

“Unimaginable catastrophe. Plague, revolts, despair. Nine of ten of them are dead; more will likely die. The Heartlands of the Mexicotál are a charnel wasteland now. As near as I can tell, that’s the vision our enemies have of what they want to see happen to all of us.

“And the plague is slowly spreading north. In the spring, we figure it will reach southern Zarthan, Outpost and Xiphlon. You probably have a year, perhaps two at most, to prepare for it.”

“Nine of ten?”

“Duke Tuck knew the plague; so does the High King. They tried to share the information with the heirs to the God-King, but it was too late. Still, Tuck and his people had time to prepare and one in fifty of their people died. Among the young it is much worse, one in three of those six summers or less die; a great many of the old.”

“And you know how to protect against this plague?” Tendai said, his eyes wild.

“You can’t protect against it, at least not yet. But there are things you can do to keep a healthy person alive until the demons pass out of the body. And we will freely share the information with the Ruthani, war or no war. Tendai, the plague was deliberately set upon the Heartlands.”

“What kind of beast would do something like that? Styphon?”

“We don’t know, but it seems like an overlarge coincidence that the largest army in the world is shattered. They will take a generation, perhaps two, to reconstitute their society, and then they will be only a pale shadow of their former selves. That is our enemy’s plan, we think, for all of us.”

An old crone came tottering up the road from the village, supported by two young women. She stopped and looked at Tendai, then at Denethon. Then she turned back to Tendai. “Elk Man came running, as if to grieve over his woman. He saw her, then turned from the path and vanished into the brush along the banks of the stream.”

Tubai spoke loudly. “A gold Kalvan to the man who brings me Elk Man. Two, if he’s alive.”

There were muttered comments, and then a stampede away as most of the men took off in pursuit.

“What I will do now,” Denethon told him, “is withdraw my soldiers to North Port. You might want to send someone to visit North Port to see first hand our enemy’s vision for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Alcibydos of North Port poisoned his father, then drove his younger sister to flee for her life. I have no idea what has happened to the other two brothers. When my army reached the usurper’s gates he used fireseed to level the town, killing most of the inhabitants, and several hundred of my men. Nine of ten, Tendai, died in County North Port.”

“I must send word to the other villages.”

“You will want to be very careful, particularly if that man escapes. There are Ruthani raiding our towns. They recently conducted a large raid against one of the High King’s towns, killing their count and the brigadier who commanded there. Even now, a column of Hostigi are marching west, as I was marching east. We were to meet in the spring, having trampled the Ruthani into the dust.”

“Nine of ten,” Tendai said with a sigh. “Yes, we will be careful. I will send someone to North Port, someone who will pass unseen among you. Please, General, call off the Hostigi! The High King is a wise man, Duke Tuck and Count Gamelin are wise men, as are your King and Count Errock. As are you and I. But not all men are wise, General! Please, tell them to treat with us, and we will treat with them. This isn’t our doing!”

Denethon nodded. “I understand. As I said, we will withdraw at once for the coast. I too have scouts, and while they may not be as good as yours they aren’t bad. They will be set watching.”

Tendai bowed deeply. He held out his hand and he and Denethon clasped hands tightly. “To the downfall of those who plot our ruin!”

VI

Gamelin sat down across from Judy, and then looked out over the city from the terrace of their palace. “I am humbled,” he said after a few heartbeats.

“As we all are, Gamelin.”

“The people bow to me. Soldiers stomp and salute. Soldiers would salute before, but nothing like this. The people...I was tolerated because I was your husband. Now they bow; many of the women hug me.”

“My husband, as terrible as this was, we grew together. The city is now one.”

He shook his head. “I’m not your lord, not in the least, tiniest bit. That I am your husband fills me with such pride–I could burst.”

“Well, that would make a mess on the terrace. Not just yet.”

“The first time one of the women hugged me, I was bemused. I took it wrong. You have no idea how close I came to making a fool of myself.”

Judy slapped her knee. “You had the strength even to think about it? Well! Tonight we sleep together again!”

“Yes!”

They stared at each other, speaking volumes, even if there wasn’t a sound.

“That woman whispered in my ear, and I knew myself for the fool I was. ‘Avenge my children, Count Gamelin! I beseech you!’ Those were her words.”

“It has not been a good summer,” Judy said with as much dignity as she could muster.

“So, Legios is in Zacateca, negotiating with King Xyl. Irony, eh?”

“Why do you say that, Gamelin?” Judy asked.

“He did so well against Denethon. And now, he’s there, standing in front of the King of the Olmecha telling him our mind.”

“Legios doesn’t speak the language, Gamelin. While most of the senior nobles of King Xyl’s court, including the King, speak Zarthani, he doesn’t speak Mexicotál.”

“And your point?”

“Maya is his translator.”

Gamelin’s palm slapped his forehead. “Ah! My head aches!”

VII

Legios woke from his latest bout of sickness, aware of the damp cloth on his forehead. He opened his eyes, smiling, intending to once again thank the priest for his succor.

Maya was leaning close, a worried look on her face. He blinked, and in reaction, so did she.

“Are you okay, Captain?” she asked.

“I’m alive.” Legios didn’t know how to say what he had to say. “Is there a priest?”

She shook her head. “My brother has decreed that a few people be dedicated to treating the sick, and those people have to spend a half moon without being sick, before they can leave the side of those they nurse and mingle with anyone except those like themselves.”

Legios knew that beneath the thin gauze of the coverlet that covered him, he was bare. And he knew full well what the plague did to a man. “You cared for me?”

She leaned down over him and wept.

He reached out and touched her head, softly stroking her hair. “Maya?”

Nothing happened for the longest time, except muffled sobs. Finally she lifted back up. “I was afraid, do you understand? I didn’t know what to do. You were pretty clear that the spy was going to have a bad time. I panicked.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“You were at Three Hills. Please, tell me you didn’t try to kill my brother!”

“I never fired my weapon.”

She looked at him, sobbed louder. Now she was drenching his coverlet, squeezing his hand painfully tight.

It was like a light shown on him. “Maya,” he said evenly. She lifted her head and looked at him.

“Brigadier Markos wished Xyl dead in the first volley of our cannon. He pointed to where your brother’s artillery had formed a line and were preparing to fire. ‘Very well done,’ he said, ‘I hope their commander dies in our first volley, because he is very good at what he does.’”

“And he fired on your position?”

“Yes. He fired balls, but none of them came close to where I was. He was shooting at our artillery, except our guns were dug in, with only the muzzles showing. It wasn’t much of a fight.”

After so many times, finally it made sense. She was a soldier. Not in the sense he might think of a soldier, but a soldier, nonetheless. She’d had a dangerous assignment and she’d thought he was about to endanger it. What would he do, if he was sneaking through an enemy camp and came to an alert sentry? He’d kill him without a second thought.

His breath left him in a long wheeze, and he started choking. She was frantic, and a moment later, priests surrounded him on all sides.

It was most embarrassing, really, to say that a beautiful woman had taken his breath away.

Still, he reached out, found her hand, and in his last heartbeats of consciousness, squeezed it and tried to explain, but the darkness rolled over him.

After that, every day he was better. Maya was always by his side, no matter who else. In spite of the temptation to do otherwise, one of the first things he did was resume control of his personal affairs...including visits to the latrine.

King Xyl came a few days after he was able to sit up for a palm width at a time. “Captain, Maya tells me you are faring well.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain Legios, I realize that some men would take this wrong, but I’m not stupid. You have my permission to court my sister.”

Legios lifted his hand and rubbed his forehead. “I think I have a headache.”

“When Maya was seven, Captain, I noticed she had that affect on me.”

It wasn’t possible not to laugh.

King Xyl turned serious. “Your Baron Hollar has spent half of his days next to your bed. It was mere happenstance that he wasn’t here when you woke up. Please, Captain, listen to what he has to say, think carefully, before making decisions having nothing to do with Maya.”

A finger width later Sergeant Hollar was kneeling next to him. “Captain?”

“I’m still alive.”

The sergeant-baron laughed. “There’s a legend already growing about it.”

“About me living?”

“No, sir. About the white hair. That the plague can’t kill a man with plague-white hair.”

Legios lifted his hand, and ran it through his hair. It felt normal. Yet, King Xyl had white hair. So had Gamelin. And now, evidently, so did he.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s been two-thirds of a moon, sir. The High King himself has confirmed the truce.”

“And me?”

“You’re to help me with the talks as soon as you are able. Everyone understands that you’ve come within a hair’s breadth of death twice and need time to recover.”

“And Maya?”

“What about her, sir?”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, Sergeant! You know what I mean. She tried to kill me!”

“Sir, sometime you should talk to the Mortar brothers about what happened after their family was killed. Particularly the little ones.”

“Why?”

“Short tried to kill Big twice. He put a bullet in him once, nearly took an eye with a knife.”

Legios tried to imagine the sort of man who could attack Big twice. Short came right to mind.

“Why?”

“They watched their younger brother and two little sisters die on a pyramid. Their hearts cut out, their blood running down the gutter. Short just wanted to wade into them and kill as many as he could. Big wanted to make them pay a thousand times over. Short was young and didn’t understand true payback.”

Legios was silent. “You’re saying I should let it go?”

“Sir, the High King has a bullet scar on his side, put there by his wife. She’s not a bad shot, sir. She should have killed him, except he saw her aiming and threw himself out of his saddle.”

“I never saw it coming,” Legios whispered.

“But you are still alive, Captain. I’m an earthy fellow, sir. Women and I...we talk about one thing. If I were you, Captain, I know what I’d change the topic of my next conversation with Lady Maya to.”

VIII

Tanda Havra touched her son’s forehead as he lay sleeping. Two of Puma’s people were in the room, looking fierce.

She nodded to them, then steeled herself and left the room. It took all the courage she had, each day, to leave his side. Yet she knew that he was safer, buried in the bowels of the palace with guards surrounding him, than he would be close to her.

She met Tuck coming towards her. He grinned, went through the door into John’s bedroom. Seeing the sleeping boy, he too leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

He turned to the guards. “When he wakes, bring him to us.”

“Yes, Duke!” came the chorus in answer.

Tuck grabbed Tanda’s arm and he tugged her for the door once again. “We have a problem,” he said when they were in the corridor, out of earshot of anyone.

“What problem?”

“Do you remember what your ex-boss said about reports being fudged?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it made me think. We’ve heard terrible things about what happened in the south, but no one we trust has actually seen those things.”

“Hollar and Legios report Zacateca was depopulated,” she told him. “I trust them.”

“I know. So I got to thinking. King Xyl has sent us quite a few reports on what happened in the eastern portions of his kingdom, but nothing much about the western part. Those towns would have had the plague arrive later, rather than sooner. He had our information by then, so I wanted to see how Huspai did.”

Tanda grimaced. Huspai had been a thorn in their side since Xipototec had fallen.

“Imagine my surprise when I found that our information was based on exactly two accounts of ‘plague in Huspai, people are dying in droves.’”

“And?” Tanda asked, suddenly concerned.

“I went to the priests of Galzar. I told them I wanted to talk to some of the refugees from Huspai. They went and looked in their records. They didn’t have any patients from Huspai. I went to the logistos and asked him how many refugees from Huspai we had. The numbers looked right, about forty thousand.

“Except, if there were that many people in the refugee camp, we’d have noticed. So I talked to Texiera, Puma’s deputy, and had him send his people out to talk in the refugee camps and interview people from Huspai.

“Odd thing that, only one of a dozen of his people found people to talk to. He had, that one man reported, talked to a dozen. I don’t hold Texiera at fault. That man reported last, and before Texiera could ask more questions the man coughed, choked and died in front of him. Texiera thought it was the plague.”

Tanda Havra paled. “There aren’t any refugees from Huspai?”

“Not so far as I can tell. I know I should have come to you sooner, but Texiera and I got together with Leem, the Lost Ruthani scout. Leem and some of the Lost Ruthani and some of Texiera’s people reached Huspai yesterday. They report that the city appears have been abandoned.”

“Abandoned?”

“There was a proclamation on the town gates that everyone had fled to Becal. Leem went on to Becal–it appears to have been untouched by the plague.

“There are no funeral pyres, the people seem to be going about their usual pursuits, in their usual numbers,” he told his wife.

Tuck smiled at her. “I’m about to go up to the signal post. I’m told the line is through now to Zacateca. I thought we could test it out. I’d like to know what King Xyl knows about this.”

Tanda Havra inclined her head. “There were supposed to be quite a few soldiers encamped just outside of Huspai,” she said evenly.

“They are now at Becal, according to Leem.”

Tanda Havra tugged his arm. “I’m curious myself, about what Xyl has to say.”

What King Xyl had to say was short. “I have almost no communications within the Kingdom except for a few outposts we’ve established. I have no knowledge of what happened in Huspai and Becal–as far as I know, things would have been no different there than anywhere else.”

“We are checking,” Tuck sent. “They appear to have survived untouched.”

“As will I.”

Messages were short, there was no way, really, to chat, when each message took more than a palm width to reach its destination and return.

A short while later Tuck and Tanda stood at the southern signal point, waiting for Leem to report.

The flashes started and the signal captain turned to Tuck. “Sir, they say it’s a long message. That they will have to disengage immediately.”

“Tell them to proceed.”

Tanda watched the signals, while watching Tuck out of the corner of her eye.

The last bit was received and Tuck spoke simply. “Destroy all copies of message. All posts relocate at once.”

That was a very short set of light codes in response.

Tuck stared at the signal captain. “I know we keep repeating this, and so far your people have done their duty. I swear I have no complaint, but this simply can’t be said too many times, as the fate of the realm rests on it. If I hear about this before it’s made public, I’ll decide none of you are trustworthy. The High King may decide this message is one of those that the security of his realm rests upon. That means if the information leaks, he’ll order the execution of everyone in the message chain, to make sure there is no further risk to the realm from those who might have passed on the message.”

“I understand,” the man said, standing stiffly at attention. “My people understand. I will, however, remind them.”

“Do that. Now Tanda and I will spend a short time digesting this, then we’ll have another message, this time for the High King, the Grand Marshal, Countess Judy and King Freidal. The same terms will apply to that message.”

Tanda finished reading the message for a second time. “I should communicate this to my chief,” she told him.

“Fine. Do that. First, though, what do we tell the High King and King Freidal?”

Tanda laughed bitterly. “The information is clear enough, isn’t it?”

“I simply don’t know how to respond.”

“Becal never had the plague. Priests of Styphon appeared along with some of the old God-King’s priests. They told the people of Becal that the gods wished to save the godly, and that if they lined up, they’d protect all those who professed loyalty to those gods from the plague. There are tales of a few men who simply ran; there are more tales of men who stayed, accepted the ‘Guardian Gods bounty’ and survived. Men, women and children, most of whom never got sick.

“The stories told of two pills, one white, and one black. You took one white pill if you’d never been sick. If you were sick with the disease, you took a black pill every day until the symptoms passed. Then you spent another few days and they did, indeed, pass.

When Tanda finished the summation, Tuck could only nod. “We’ll have to include that bit about Lomax, the former Archpriest of Styphon.”

“Freidal said he was dead.”

“Except the fire burned Styphon’s Temple in Baytown to the ground. None came out, so Alros said, and they assumed they all had been consumed by the fire. No one saw the bodies, though.”

Tuck stared southwards. “We aren’t investigating thoroughly; none of us are. Xyl said that they found the man who ordered the attack from Huspai against Countess Noia dead. Finish, end of story. Why look further? Lady Inisa’s mother was probably someone important in Styphon’s hierarchy, and undoubtedly wasn’t the last person in her family to be.”

“Do you think Inisa is spying on Manistewa?”

Well, that was as politic of a way she could put it, given they were somewhat in public.

“I think it is a real possibility.”

Tuck looked angrier than Tanda could ever remember him. “They are everywhere and nowhere. We know they are plotting against us, but we don’t know the shape or purpose of their plots. Every time we turn around, the plotters have moved into a new area, a wider area, and we are left with little or no real information of what they are about.

“They show us things that make sense and we accept what is clearly a rational explanation...just that what we think happened is frequently wrong.”

“Don’t despair,” Tanda told him quietly.

“I’m not despairing. But, frankly, we should have pulled out all of the stops long before this. We need to carefully rethink our own plans.”

He turned brisk. “Lets get that message ready to send and get it on its way.”


	19. Oaths of Vengeance

I

Puma sat in the lee of a rock, letting the rain run over her without paying it much heed. Shuria appeared as a dim shadow and squatted next to her. “Tomorrow, eh?” he told her.

“Yes,” she replied economically.

“You’ve been quiet most of the trip.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

He grinned a bit. “I’ve been doing a lot of anticipating the trip back to Xipototec when it’s just the two of us.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”

A lightning bolt cut a jagged path from sky to ground, and thunder pealed in the distance.

“Just over the ridge,” he told her, “I can see a wagon in the middle of the desert, as promised.”

“I saw it earlier, too,” Puma told him.

“Are you having second thoughts about us?”

“I’ve been having second thoughts about practically everything. About how much it is worth to be ‘Lady Puma.’”

“It’s not something we do, amongst ourselves,” he told her. “We do honor those who do brave things, or who help their villages in times of need.”

“It is seductive,” Puma said carefully. “Like the words of a man who wants you to walk with him away from the fires.”

“I am not one who flatters and uses sugar. We’ve worked together; we’ve fought together. We know each other.”

Puma smiled slightly. “You understand that women howl with laughter at men who think that the biggest gift they give their woman is themselves.”

“Well, I can fetch flowers if that’s what you’d like.”

He was laughing. Puma met his dark eyes. The rain stopped and she stood up. He did as well, facing her. “Will you walk with me, Puma?”

She’d been sitting with her poncho pulled tight around her, keeping some of the water off. Now, she let it open, pointing her shotgun squarely at his midsection.

“Keep your hands away from your body, Shuria. Go to your knees, your hands behind your head.”

“Puma, what is this?”

“Your death if you don’t do as you’re told.”

“I can’t believe you’re a traitor!” Still, he sank to his knees.

“Put your hands behind your neck.” He did as bid and she moved behind him, placing the shotgun against his spine. She carefully pulled away his knife and then his shotgun. It was unlikely in the extreme she could get all his weapons unless she stripped him nude and there was no time for that.

She looped a piece of rope around one of his wrists, the rope already tied. A second later, his second hand was secure as well. Then a few more loops to be sure that she would have at least a finger width head start.

“Up!” she commanded and he obediently stood up. “Start walking downhill. If you’re smart, you will go to the woman and deliver her to your friends. It would not be wise ever to be seen in the lands of the High King again.”

“I’m not the traitor here.”

“And of anyone, you should know the truth of that! I could not understand why my no-blood sister wanted to send me away on such a useless errand. Things were going well with my soldiers, with my duty to her. At first I thought it was her way to throw us together again, as she once put Tazi and her lover together. Then I thought about all the broad hints she’d whispered about Lady Inisa and where she got her orders.

“It took me a while to put it together. But now I have.”

“You’re being foolish, Puma! I care about you!”

“Maybe. It’s true enough I cared about you. Now, I’m not sure what I think. But if you come after me, then I’ll know, won’t I?”

“You’re demented! Bad cactus juice!”

She laughed. “Take the woman. Think long and hard if you want to trust to my no-blood sister’s mercy. It was her son Inisa threatened. If you had any part in that, she’ll kill you if you return.”

“I have fought for the High King, I have bled for the High King. You and I have stood together to fight his enemies!”

“Words, Shuria. All words. Walk to the bottom of the ridge. I’ll have you in my sights the entire time.”

He shrugged and started walking. She moved several hundred feet, watching him closely, and then she ducked behind some rocks. Sure enough, he’d stopped and was looking uphill. Her bullet didn’t seem to faze him, as it spalled rocks forty feet away from him. He started moving again, going carefully, showing no signs of trying to untie his hands. When he was close to the bottom of the ridge, she slithered a few feet and was on the other side of the ridge.

She started running then, full tilt, as fast as she’d ever run.

She smiled thinly to herself as she loped along the ridge. Shuria, like most Ruthani, rarely had cared for a horse. She’d picketed the four horses they had with them in a grassy little swale, just as it had started to rain. The beasts were both hungry and thirsty. And too stupid to know when to stop eating or drinking. If he went to them, he’d find them bloated, filled with gas and barely able to walk, much less run.

These mountains ran nearly fifty miles to the southeast. He’d had the early morning watch last night, so Shuria been awake now for eighteen hours. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but if he spent any time going back to check on Inisa and to pick up a rifle she’d have even more of an advantage. She’d very carefully fiddled with his rifle and the first time he fired it, it would break.

Could she actually stay ahead of him in an extended chase? It would come down to a battle of wills and skills. She came to an easy downhill slope and she lengthened her stride even further.

II

A half moon later she faced her no-blood sister who was blunt. “Did he follow you?”

“No. Twice I hid in places where I could have seen him miles away. I never saw him.”

“I’m sorry, Lady Puma.”

She lifted her chin. “I am Ruthani! We do not war on women and children! We do not betray each other!”

“Well, I have sent a message about this to Manistewa. I would not want to be in Shuria’s boots were those two to meet. You were friends and comrades; to me he was a trusted scout. To Manistewa, he was like a brother. His only complaint is that I didn’t go to him with my suspicions.”

“Do you trust me?” Puma asked.

Tanda Havra shrugged. “To be honest, I trust no one, except my son–not even my husband. We brought someone from your village here, someone who was on record as thinking you are an obnoxious woman, with no sense of her place. Yes, he said, you are Puma, Lion’s daughter.”

Tanda stopped, obviously close to tears. She looked at Puma. “In my life, my mother died when I was born. My father turned me out on my own early. Old Man of Mogdai took me in and treated me fairly, even if most did not. Tazi of Mogdai came to me for advice and companionship, knowing that if war came her father would be one of the first to die.

“No one, none except those, cared about me, until I met Tuck. He cared; I could see it almost at once. Judy and her friends, and Elspeth, they were wary around me. But they treated me with respect, even so.”

“And Manistewa?”

She snorted. “Manistewa’s interest in me was because I was living in a village far to the south, where he had few contacts. Mogdai raised fine cattle, fine corn! It was worth much in trade to my uncle! So was I. Manistewa wanted me, so he could put more coins in his pocket! Tuck wanted me because he thought he would be a better person for it.

“Trust? I’ve never learned to trust people. If you can’t work with someone who will be forever watching your every move, go home.”

Puma lifted her chin. “I am Puma, Lion’s daughter! I am home!”

“Then, sister, you and I, we will take the fight to our enemies. We will cause their women to fill the air with death chants for their men! We will tear down their cities and towns; we will visit upon them, what they’ve visited upon us! It will be bloody, brutal, and no one can afford to trust anyone.”

“I will follow you, sister. You are no blood of mine, but I’ve come to see what my father saw in you. You may not have his blood flowing in you, but you have the same heart!”

“Good. Return to your duties. There’s a lot of rumbling in the city. People are upset, they want to strike out at an enemy, they want to do something to even the balance. Except just now, we don’t know who to strike or where to strike. Take the pulse of the city; listen to people. Speak mildly soothing words of caution, but don’t sound as if you want to hold back.”

“I surely don’t.”

“Good!

“For the time being, we’ve limited our public contact as much as possible. You won’t be able to, so it will be dangerous.”

“Sister, please! Talk to me of danger the day you’ve cautioned yourself!”

Tanda smiled. “Sister, heed my words! Tuck and I are limiting our public contact. We do that, so that what nearly happened to Queen Elspeth doesn’t happen to us.”

Puma bowed her head. “I’m sorry, sister.”

“It’s enough I’m your sister. Now, get to it!”

III

Heurtic sat on the top step of the central pyramid of Tenosh. Once upon a time, less than a year ago, had he done this, he’d have died instantly for the sacrilege.

Bodies dotted the sides of the pyramid; in truth in some places many had died, enough to stack the bodies high. But they hadn’t been sacrificed to the gods, at least not as tradition dictated.

He stared blindly over the Valley of Mexico. In days gone by a few plumes of smoke would have been expected. Today the air was nearly opaque, but even in the limited visibility there were hundreds, perhaps a thousand visible pillars of smoke rising into the air.

One of those pillars had consumed his three fine sons, his two lovely daughters, all dead of the plague. Another had consumed his wife, who’d thrown herself from the top floor of their apartment building, in despair over her dead children.

He should have died like that, he knew. But unlike his wife, he’d been sick. He hadn’t the strength to lever himself to his feet, much less to climb several ladders.

Now he was strong enough to climb the pyramid. True, it had taken three days and if he hadn’t had enough food for a moon quarter on his shoulders, he’d have died like so many of these others.

He wiped tears from his eyes. Tears for his children, for his wife, for himself, for his people.

He had been one of those wildly enthusiastic about King Xyl and the end of the sacrifices. He knew full well that as soon as his daughters were old enough, at least one, and perhaps both of them, would have climbed the pyramid. He grimaced. Too many men had seen their daughters taken by the priests and hadn’t seen them climb the pyramid.

The anger about that was sullen and silent. Yet, all men knew how the others felt. You couldn’t live as they did and not know everything about all the others who lived close by. You knew whose daughters were taken, you knew whether or not they were painted and climbed the pyramid. The number of girls who never reached the sacrifice had gone from an occasional mutter, to a scandal and, in the end, became a fuse to a keg of fireseed.

When the plague struck, like everyone else, he’d not known what to do. For two days he’d hesitated, unsure. Two days that cost him his children. To have a child die in your arms was a terrible thing. To have them die as the victims of the plague died was beyond terrible. And parents who cared for their children sickened and died as well. It had been terrible beyond words and he’d told his wife he’d do what had to be done. So he sickened and she did not.

He raised his fist to the sky, shaking it, heedless of risk, giving in once again to the rage he felt.

As before, he couldn’t sustain the rage. He lived. That he lived was a miracle, there was no other rational explanation.

His wife had left him; all the survivors of the apartments had fled. He had been dying and no one cared any longer for those who were sick. Two soldiers had found him incoherent, dying in the street, a few feet from the broken body of his wife.

They had an old man with them, a priest of some heathen god from the North, he’d been told. An old man, one that Heurtic knew had to be susceptible in the extreme to the plague. The soldiers and the priest nursed him, explaining to him about the salt he drank was restoring the salt of his body. All men knew sweat was salty! It had made sense!

And, there, at the end, at his last gasp of strength, the old man had given him his own flask, and Heurtic drank, knowing as he did, he was killing the old man. And sure enough, the heathen priest of a foreign god took sick before his eyes and died in two palm widths.

He’d expected the two soldiers with the old man would kill him. Instead, they talked to him as the priest had about the treatment of the plague, and above all, how soldiers should live and fight. When he’d been able to walk, he helped them treat the half dozen they’d found still alive. Most died, but not him, nor did the two soldiers.

Then they saw a signal light, far away and they told Heurtic that King Xyl had taken refuge in the north and they were going to him, to assist the king. Both of the soldiers now wore the same sort of blue robes as the old heathen priest. Heurtic had wished them luck, but even as much as he owed the priest, he assumed the man hadn’t saved him to throw his life away like that.

So, despairing, he’d climbed the pyramid.

He’d believed, in spite of the evidence of whispered terror in the night, that the catastrophe had been local, that it was only his family and friends and the others from the apartments that had died. Now, atop the pyramid, it was made clear in a way that left no doubt about what had happened to his people. Their gods had clearly forsaken them. Gods were powerful beings, no doubt, but King Xyl had tried to contain them. And they had struck back. Not at the king, but at his people.

Heurtic spat, careful to do it downwind, as the wind on top of the pyramid was quite brisk.

He’d been wrong, hadn’t he? He’d lived when so many others had died. That priest had died for him. Dralm had been the name of the priest’s god. Heurtic swore fulsomely. He’d been a blind fool. A high priest of Dralm had died to save Heurtic, a common man who labored in the fields of the God-King. More, that priest had taught soldiers how to fight the plague, and they’d fought it and thus Heurtic lived when so many others died.

Heurtic rose. First, he would come down from this pyramid. He leaned down and picked up one of the paving stones. The stories of the northern towns had been told in hushed tones, carefully, where none of the spies could overhear. There the people had torn down their pyramids, stone by stone.

King Xyl had left the pyramids, as monuments to their gods, but had killed the priests of those gods and ended the sacrifices to them.

He reached down and pried another stone loose and carried it in his other hand as he descended the pyramid. A day and a half later he tossed them into the lake at the pyramid’s foot. Then he resolutely turned his face northwards. If the king was there, the king who’d stopped the sacrifices, why, he’d go to him. He didn’t know what he could do to help, but there had never been a time in his experience that the lords and nobles of the Mexicotál couldn’t have used yet one more set of hands at some task.

IV

Gryllos stood up in his stirrups and looked east. The files of Olmechan infantry continued south. Their pace was that of treacle in the dead of winter, as so many of them had been sorely weakened by the plague. If the plight of those half million soldiers was terrible, the land they marched through would make stones weep.

The plague had visited death terribly upon the unprotected. Then had come the fighting, the hopelessness that made men and women despair so much that they cared not at all if they lived or died.

They’d tried to succor such at first, but the cost had been too high. The cost in blood, the cost in peace of mind. Even if you could capture one of the despairing ones, you had to watch them every heartbeat. If you didn’t they’d fling themselves beneath a horse’s hooves, under wagon wheels, or, if none of those were handy, into the nearest clump of armed men, heedless of their own life, desiring only death.

He’d spent eighteen men learning that lesson. It grated terribly to shoot men and women who were so helpless, but there was no other way. It wasn’t a particular blessing that they never saw children that despaired as did their parents. That was because there were no children. None. The land had been scourged clean of all of them.

In the distance he saw a party break away from a big clump of them, riding towards the low eminence he was atop. It was one of those things no reasonable person could understand. Had he been retreating after such a humiliating defeat, he’d have hated those who watched him for compliance. But the Olmechan army each and every morning, the first thing, saluted the Heavy Weapons Company. It was the last thing they did at night as well, before the sun set.

It was, they told him, an honor to be escorted by the finest fighting men in the Hostigi army. No, not sarcasm, but the hard respect of hard fighting men.

Gryllos was aware that if it ever came to war again, the Olmecha would be a very different enemy than the one they’d fought before. The men marching before him had a grim determination; a stoic disregard for casualties that was clearly rooted in the same despair as filled the countryside.

“Parley party coming, Captain,” one of his sergeants said unnecessarily.

“I see them. Let us go meet them half way. Two of us.” Two to match the two men riding towards them.

He saluted Captain-General Thanos when he saw him. “Sir,” Gryllos said politely.

“Captain, about a mile ahead is our pivot point. We’ll turn west for Zacateca there. The king has sent us a wagon convoy with more food, and wagons for the weak. We should meet it shortly before nightfall.”

“Thank you, Captain-General. It is as you said. There won’t be any problems.”

“I received word early this morning that Hestophes sent his priests and additional soldiers to help our sick, those unable to travel yet, south of Zimapan.”

Gryllos blinked and felt a prickly dribble of sweat run down his back.

The captain-general laughed. “No, he told us it was to succor them. They will be free to leave when they’re better, Oath to Galzar.”

Gryllos nodded. That was another thing. The long columns of soldiers ahead of them had an insatiable demand for the Uncle Wolfs of the army. Galzar had won a great many converts in the land of King Xyl, and so had Dralm. The other gods to a lesser extent, but the people spoke of the priests of Dralm who worked unstintingly to save the common folk of the king’s realm. There was no doubt that a profound change had come over the Olmecha.

“If we can do anything for you, Captain-General, you need but ask.”

“The one thing we’d like, no man can supply: our people back. We will be back; I swear it. And our vengeance on those who did this to us will be swift and terrible. But we won’t send demons who boil a man’s blood and turn his bowels to water to do our work. We aren’t going to cut their living hearts out on the pyramids of our former gods. We’re just going to kill the bastards.”

“Like I said, if there’s any help we can give you, just ask.”

The other nodded. The captain-general turned and looked at his army, then turned back to Gryllos. “You know, if the situation had been reversed, if it had been you that had been struck with the plague, we’d have laughed at the idea of sharing treatment. Instead of a handful of men observing a half million soldiers retreating, we’d have struck with every man we could raise. Right now I would be contemptuous of you and your gods.”

“That’s not the High King’s way, sir. It’s not Duke Tuck’s or Countess Judy...it’s not our way at all.”

“Aye. Our army lives because of the generosity of Countess Judy, High King Kalvan and Duke Tuck. You had no reason to do so.”

“No reason? What true man could stand idly by while so many died? We tried, sir. Gods, how we tried!”

“Legios tells us that three of four of those who fled to the lands of the High King survived.”

“It’s true, sir. I’ve counted the living and the dead. It’s not a task I’ll ever be comfortable with again.”

“And if one in a hundred of our people in our lands survived, we’ll be overwhelmed with joy. After this winter, it could be just one in two hundred who live.”

“You’re getting things organized, sir. The crops were planted and your men will go further south and help harvest them.”

“It will be late, much will have spoiled in the fields, or been eaten by the birds and rodents. For them, this was the most bountiful harvest, ever!”

Gryllos sighed. “You’ll do okay, sir. I saw a copy of a message sent from Duke Tuck to King Xyl offering help.”

Thanos stared at him, as if debating something within himself.

“We went through the Northern Ruthani villages loyal to the plotters quickly. There were barely ten thousand who stood against us. Denethon and Phrames defeated them handily. At least for the time being, the plotters appear to have been stymied,” Gryllos added.

“They haven’t quit,” the captain-general observed darkly.

“I’m sure they haven’t. Certainly the High King and the King of Zarthan believe that they will try something else. We’ll fight back harder this time. Much harder.”

The captain-general backed his horse up a step and saluted Gryllos. “My regards, Captain.”

“Sir, fare well.”

He shook his head. “We’ll just fare for the time being. Well won’t be a description to describe us for many, many years. But it won’t affect our vengeance.”

V

Noia bowed to King Freidal, but kept her right hand next to her side, near her shotgun. There was quite a crowd around them. The last time in a crowd like this, she’d needed her shotgun.

“Welcome, Countess.”

“Lord King!” she responded, “I am glad once again to be among my people!”

“I am the father of a fine son,” he told her. “I am willing to grant any boon you ask of me.”

She bowed her head, thinking, before whispering, “Not here, not now, not one.”

He tipped his head slightly. “Okay,” he whispered. “It shall be as you wish, Countess!” he said loudly.

There was a minimum of ceremony, and then they were in the palace. Queen Elspeth was pale and clearly weak, and there was a baby in her arms. Xitki Quillan was there as well, looking solid and tough.

“More than a year and a half,” the king mused. “My, how time flies.”

“Yes, sire.”

“If you want me to call you Noia, Countess, it’ll have to be Freidal in private.”

“Yes, sir.”

He smiled slightly. “Count Quillan, would you summarize General Denethon’s latest report?”

“The Northern Ruthani have been severely penetrated by this conspiracy. About a third of their villages were solidly in the enemy’s camp. The rest have been lied to systematically. Worse, if anyone learned the truth, the plotters ruthlessly killed them. Now that the secret is out, there is a great deal of unrest in the lands of the Northern Ruthani...a lot of blood feuds have started.

“Our allies are more numerous than our enemies, and our soldiers are better trained and equipped than those we face. So far General Denethon has easily defeated all those who opposed him. Between he and Count Phrames, the vast majority of the disloyal villages and towns have been destroyed.

“At first we thought it was the onset of winter that was reducing the number of battles, however Denethon now suspects that our enemy has retreated to regroup. How long they will be involved with that, I don’t know; most likely we won’t see them before spring. But we’ve misjudged them too many times to be able to rest easily.”

“Thank you, Count Quillan,” Freidal told his mentor. “Convey my regards to Denethon, as I shall as well.”

“Me, too!” Elspeth said brightly.

“Now, we must turn to North Port, Countess.”

“I understand it’s very bad.”

“To be honest, Countess, it’s worse than very bad. Count Echanistra has sent several thousand of his soldiers to help General Denethon, while something like six thousand of Denethon’s men are working in the fields of your county. There were, according to the rolls, nearly ten thousand who lived in North Port, the town, another twelve thousand six hundred who farmed in the county.

“Your brother called all of them into town as General Denethon’s army approached. When he destroyed the town, he killed more than twenty thousand men, women and children.

“I have spoken with Baytown’s Uncle Wolf. He has agreed to my desires in this. We have declared Alcibydos anathema, that no man who takes his colors may appeal to Galzar for mercy. There is a bounty on his head now of one gold Kalvan for each person of his county he killed. Twenty-thousand two hundred and seventy-six.”

Noia tried not to cry, but it was impossible.

“There aren’t enough hale men in the county to harvest the crops,” the king said bluntly. “That’s what Denethon’s men are doing right now. Count Echanistra will sell the grain, and you’ll be credited with it, Noia.”

“I have to go there,” she told him.

“I know. I’d like to tell you that you’re needed here more; in truth you are. But to just toss a county on the trash heap? That’s too cold. Your fellow counts would be uneasy at best; more likely, they’d be distrustful of a ruler who could turn his head from such pain and misery.

“So, go there. I’d like to keep most of your shipyard men. We’ve been building a couple of ships according to the plans the High King sent us. One goes well, two do not. You can, however, take a half dozen of your people with you.”

“Earlier you said I could ask a boon and I said not one. Please, Lord King, hear my petition.”

“There is no way I can tell you no,” he told her. “Your people have suffered terribly. Whatever it is within my power to grant.”

“I wish to take the men you don’t absolutely need north with me. I’d like to keep General Denethon’s soldiers. All of them. I don’t ever want to give them back. This winter, they will cut timber. Come spring, we’ll have forms and plans for them to work from. We’ll build ships, Lord King, in North Port. Send us any man that you can spare, even if he is otherwise unsuitable. I’ll find a use for all of them. You can throw in obnoxious troublemakers like Trilium or myself.

“I wish a personal boon. When you find my brother, send word to me. I want to see him in my sights, I want to kill him myself.” She looked beseechingly at her king. “Once, I thought I wanted to kill him to pay him back for what he did to our father. Now, I want to kill him for the people of North Port.”

“Granted, Lady Noia. All of it.”

“There is another, one last thing.”

“Of course, Noia.”

“There is a sea captain–he brought me here from Echanistra. I want a full pardon for him, for any crime committed before tomorrow. And a similar full pardon for his men.”

Elspeth giggled and Count Quillan roared with laughter, saying, “A rogue! A man you can’t trust to keep the laws today!”

“In case there is any doubt, sire,” Noia told Freidal.

“I know the man,” the king replied. “His service is grudging, but loyal, nonetheless. I fault no man for driving a hard bargain. Not in these days.”

“I will give him the first ship completed.”

“You won’t take it for yourself?” Quillan asked, curious.

“No. I want someone out there looking for Alcibydos as soon as possible. By next summer, I’ll probably be able to get away. I’d like to have several ships, I’d like to command them.”

“It is done,” the king said with finality.

“Thank you, sire.”

VI

The ship’s captain looked up when his sailing master nudged him. They were always watched in port, and it had long since stopped bothering him. Now an officer in fancy armor led a party of guards towards the dock. A rather short officer, a little heavy. He grinned. Such men were forever a pain, as they were always trying to make up for their–short–comings.

The guards at the dock looked upset, but the officer pointed and the captain grinned at his true measure of the officer. A moment later the officer was leading a dozen men to the ramp, and up towards his deck. Several of those men didn’t look very soldierly. One was a huge Ruthani; another was much shorter, but nearly as large. Most of the men looked like ruffians, except the man next to the officer. A senior sergeant if he’d ever seen one!

Curious in spite of himself, he moved forward. The captain looked into the eyes of the person who boarded and started. “I remember you,” the captain whispered.

“And I remember you, Captain. Tell me, are you still interested in your heart’s desire?”

He swallowed. “Yes,” he told the other.

“I asked you if you’d be willing to help me. I ask you again, sir. Would you serve me?”

“And you’re who?”

“A captain in the navy of the High King; something else here in Zarthan.”

“Last time I saw you, you were something else yet again.”

“The last time you saw me, you sought to deceive me, as I sought to deceive you. You might want to think long and hard who was better at deception, Captain.”

“The person I remember had a deeper voice. Now you sound like a woman. Gelded, eh?”

“I was Countess Noia then, I’m Countess Noia now. Except then I pretended to be Noius so that I might live to bring vengeance to my brother.”

He froze, staring. There was no doubt the person who faced him was the one who, so long ago, had come south with his ship. He bowed his head. “I didn’t recognize you, Countess,” he said levelly.

“You weren’t supposed to,” she replied. “I have some questions for you. First, how soon can you be ready to put to sea?”

“Four palm widths, Countess. It would be dark then...” He saw her sardonic smile and remembered just why that would be so.

To confirm it, she said simply, “High tide and slack water then, eh? A good time to sail.”

“A clear night, Lady Count. Clear enough so that the forts will see us. No ship may sail at night.”

“And I have permission from the king to sail as I wish. The forts won’t fire.”

“Well, then what?”

“Then, we go to North Port.”

“A howling wilderness. Lady, I swear, if I had any idea...”

“Captain, if any of us had a glimpse of the future, that future would only have come over our dead bodies. But we can’t see the future, and what happened, happened. I will bring North Port back, Captain.”

“Every single fishing boat was destroyed.”

“Well, I don’t plan on building fishing boats,” she answered dryly. “Have you been across the bay here, to see the ships building there?”

He grimaced. Supposedly, you weren’t permitted, on pain of death. “Yes.”

“Would you like to command one?”

He was glad that he’d had a finger width to get used to the shock. “A ship like that?”

“Aye, forty-two cannon, three hundred men. The most powerful ships on the Western Ocean.”

“Yes, Countess, I would very much like to command a ship like that!”

“There would be a few constraints on what you could do with her,” Noia told him with a grin. “No midnight landings on beaches to trade in smuggled goods. Of course, a landing party against a hostile shore–where you would take a quarter of the spoil for yourself and another quarter for your crew–you would be able to do that.”

“Against what enemy, Countess?”

“My brother was one of the plotters against the king,” Noia told him. She waved westwards. “He went west. He’s out there someplace, thinking he’s safe. I want to seek him out and kill him. He has confederates. Men that the King Freidal and High King Kalvan would pay a pretty penny to see stood against a wall and shot.”

“What Alcibydos did to North Port is an unspeakable crime! I have not been the most honest captain who ever sailed, but what he did was pure evil. Evil!”

“Indeed so, Captain. If you sign on with me, you would be a captain in the navy of King Freidal. An honest man, able to walk down the street without having to peer over your shoulder to see who might be coming after you. You could acknowledge your wife and family. And, Captain, the same would be true for all the men of your crew.”

He fought tears. “Lady Countess, we are yours to command!”

“Good. I have a dozen men, and two dozen sealed chests. I want the chests stowed well above the water line. Once we’re out in the ocean, we’ll break one of those chests open and introduce your men to some of the High King’s finest weapons.”

“As you command, Lady Noia! We sail as soon as the sun is down and the water is slack!”


End file.
